Thursday, June 25, 2009

Turtle Trouble

Besides this being the last full week of the library program, I was also holding onto the last threads of sanity when my HC told me that he had found us a new pet at work one night. "Excuse me?" I said into the phone. "I think there's some static. Did I just hear you say something about a puppy?"
"No," he said. "It's not really a puppy. It's a kitten."
"!!!" I said (My HC is allergic, hello! And we have two large dogs. I am not one who believes that cats should be allowed inside... In college, my roomie had a cat and the large, solid, smell of the litter box actually made me contemplate sleeping in my car a few times. No thanks!)
"No, it's not really a cat."
"????"
"It's really a turtle. A little baby turtle."
"And?" Clearly there was a catch.
"It's a little snapping turtle. I found it in a puddle."
"What about our fish? It will eat them! We've had them for years."
"It's tiny. We can get it minnows or something."
I haven't even seen minnows since I was a girl in Florida. It is hard to see how we will supply a growing turtle who would probably like small fingers to eat even more.
So the turtle came home.

Then chaos erupted.
This turtle should be named Houdini. We lost it twice the first two hours we were awake. It was still in the tank, just contemplating its escape. And wedging itself up between the tank lid and the lightbulb so no one could see it.
We got back from the library.
"The turtle's gone," Ian announced on the way to his room. Clearly unfazed, he kept going.
"Whaaaaa?" I said, rushing to the tank.
Yup. Gone.
Thus began the search.
An hour and something later, my HC and I had torn apart the house searching and resigned ourselves to olfactory location sometime in the next week.
Then my HC decided to dig one more time in the corner behind the desk. He got a nip for his efforts, but he found the turtle.
The turtle's floating log was taken out of the tank. Now he is reduced to sitting on top of the air bubble stands, but he's doing well.
[shakes head] Sigh.

2 comments:

Canary Joy said...

Hi Goforth family,
Sounds like you've had a very busy day. We had a turtle when the kids where small too. It wasn't the snapping kind, but it did require water. And more than an inch. We learned, the hard way, that if our turtle didn't not have enough water to completely submerge itself in, that it would dry out. And it did. NOT A PRETTY SIGHT. It was disatrious. The kids cried, I cried, we had a funeral, the whole thing was just awful. All that to say, check it's water. Have a wonderful weekend. Love, the Dickinsons

MrsEvenSo... said...

A snapping turtle pet. Insanity. :P