My grandmother's after-school job was to give morgue tours.

Okay, that's a slight exaggeration.

My grandmother decided she was going to give morgue tours to her classmates,

and she made it her job, her secret job.

Ever fearless and always determined, my grandmother,

imagine a little turn of the 20th century

Hong Kong Louise Belcher,

minus the bunny ears, had at some point

figured out how to sneak into the city hospital's morgue after hours.

As the story goes, there was a back entrance by the loading dock,

and my grandmother had figured out how to snake her way

through the bowels of the hospital and into the morgue

undetected, or so she thought.

Initially she did this because she wanted to learn about anatomy.

As a bright child who had

gotten herself into one of the fancy English-speaking Catholic schools.

My grandmother had aspirations to become a surgeon

when she grew up.

So the morgue wasn't so much entertainment

for my grandmother as it was a jumpstart on medical school.

Her classmates on the other hand didn't feel quite the same way.

As soon as they found out that my grandmother was sneaking into the morgue, they begged to be taken along.

...