Last summer, Jake asked for a turtle 561 times. He wanted a little baby turtle and he wanted to name it Louis. What we could not make him understand was that those little tiny baby turtles they sell at the beach grow into big smelly turtles who shit where they eat and make noise in their tanks all night long. Interesting fact for you, selling those little tiny swimming turtles is illegal. It's a federal crime. When you go to one of 6,000 Alvin's Island Department Stores in Florida and your children fall in love with those tiny little swimming turtles and convince you to buy them one, what you are actually buying is the cage the turtle rides home with you in. The actual turtle is a gift with purchase for buying the little tank. This blog is intended to make you smarter.
We briefly took his turtle passion seriously. He wanted it bad enough to swear to its safety, to protect Louis from being eaten by the cat or carried around in the dog's mouth. Corey considered stopping to get him one on a return trip from his mom's in Jacksonville, Florida. We went to the pet stores in town trying to find a turtle to buy him that would not grow to be 30 pounds, but they all want $100 for a frazzling tortoise. We had to finally issue a "no" verdict on the turtle. Not until we're in a house, and then we'll revisit whether we have suitable accommodations for a turtle, but we're hoping by then he'll no longer be interested in the pursuit of Louis.
This weekend, Murphy spent time with his grandparents in the country. He helped Dad mow the lawn and rode around in Mom's lap with the window down, and, he found a turtle. The unfortunate and unwise reptile wandered up on my parents patio and Murphy had quite the time with the turtle. I know grown people who recoil with terror from Murphy's friendly and enthusiastic pursuits for attention and affection. I cannot imagine the panic he inflicted on a slow turtle.
This morning, Jake and Landen and I were on our way back from Awards Day at Landen's school (Honor Roll and Scholastic Excellence in Five Subjects!) and I saw this HUGE turtle slide across both lanes of Airline Highway and stop on the white line, half in the road and half on the shoulder. I was so afraid that someone would run over the turtle that I turned the car around to go back and show the boys the monster (it was the size of my head), and demonstrate something about kindness to animals by rescuing the turtle from its certain roadkilled fate.
We pulled up behind the turtle, on the shoulder. His ass and back legs were facing us. I waited for all the cars to clear the highway and I got out of the car and ran over to the turtle, intending to grab it by the shell and slide it onto the shoulder, and safety. When I reach my new friend, I discovered that he had no head, and blood was splattered all around him. I SCREAMED, right there on the side of the highway, and ran back to the car. Of course, little boys hear the words "blood" and "headless" and they want to see it, but I am not so clueless a new parent that I think it wise to have my children hop out of the car and go inspect a mutilated reptile. They could not see the headlessness from the car window, but I did point out the small amount of blood visible to them as we merged back onto the highway. "COOOOOOOOOL. It looks like ketchup."
They wanted to know why I was so upset about the death of a turtle I had never met and had never been to our home or made friends with our animals. "Because, I wanted to help save the turtle from being run over by a car. A turtle that big is probably really old. And when I went to pull it to safety, it was already DEAD and BLEEDING all over the street!" "COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!"
As I write this, we are watching Indiana Jones and eating Jelly Bellies. I took a pause from typing to cover my mouth and scream at Alfred Molina, whose back was covered with tarantulas. Jake and Landen, viewing this same scene with me, find my reaction extreme. Boys. Indiana Jones hates snakes, but his movies are FULL of his encounters, and those of his campadres, with countless creepy crawlies and exotic scaly, poisonous creatures. Landen is terrified of speed boats and Jake reacts violently to lotions, but they are curious without fear about bugs and things with wings, scales, gills and antennae.
There is nothing cool about your stepmom fleeing the scene of runover-turtle, panicked and bewildered on the side of the road. Their dad will come home with stories about snakes and scorpions that he saw and killed in Iraq, and they will listen raptly and let their imaginations take them completely away to their tough-as-nails father slaughtering poisonous threats in the barren desert. That is why he is their hero, and I just keep their mouths clean and feed them dinner.
I am too proud of their father to let them in on one of the secrets of our marriage: I kill his spiders for him.
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