Love lies rejected

At university he shared a house with biochemists. Biochemists are cold-blooded killers. Every day killing guinea pigs and rats - that’s what biochemists do. Sometimes they brought them home to eat. Delicious!

Enter one fine large white rat. It had no name; it was past introductions. There’s more than one way to skin a rat, but if our hero had a problem.... He cured it!

Being romantic, he cut it to shape, lined it with soft, silky red lining, blanket stitched it and gave the resulting clutch purse to his beloved.

She threw it away.

Why, I still ask her?