You know, I feel it’s irresponsible of me to bring it up without a proper citation (the Yeti wing of the museum’s library is, appropriately, in wild disarray), but I recall a particular—and, to my knowledge, unique—case of a Yeti being bitten by a non-Yeti.

The biter, amazingly, was a human—a south-Asian gentleman by the name of… J. A. Runmyar? Something like that. He was an ethnobotanist of sorts, and was doing research on the traditional healing practices of isolated Himalayan peoples. Would he have remained true to his focus on flora…

At any rate, Runmyar was told by the Nepalese locals that “You bite the Yeti, or you die,” and he believed that he was on the trail of some very profound medical treatments, a panacea perhaps. Unfortunately, the ethnobotanist’s grasp of the local dialect was dangerously lacking, and there was fatal subject/object confusion in the statement regarding Yetis and bites. “The Yeti bites you, and you die,” would have been a more accurate translation.

At some point in the next several weeks, Runmyar had the incredible fortune to then find a Yeti, sleeping in a Yeti-meadow. With the characteristic enthusiasm of his profession, Runmyar immediately initiated the testing phase of the Yeti miracle drug. (Although what condition he hoped to cure himself of, I don’t know—hydrophobia, perhaps? It might explain the lack of critical thought.)

The force of his bite was not enough to rouse the Yeti—indeed, I find it difficult to imagine that human teeth could even penetrate through a Yeti’s coat—but it was more than enough to give Runmyar all the Yeti-chems he needed. According to his sherpas, Runmyar’s immediate response after the bite attempt was something like an orgasm—that is, if an orgasm exploded the lower half of your body, and dissolved the back of your skull. Despite all that, Runmyar died smiling. That much the sherpas were certain of.

That the Yeti didn’t wake up makes me suspect the account’s veracity, although I suppose it is well within the realm of possibility that a) Whatever part of the beast’s consciousness remains open to perception during sleep rightfully deemed Runmyar to be of no threat whatsoever, or b) That the Yeti, to some extent, orchestrated the whole thing.

Again, I apologize for the lack of a true citation—it’s lazy academia, and I’ll see if I can’t find an intern to fix that.