Two neighbors were outside, the guy across the street and his next-door neighbor. One waved at me as I was walking from the back yard to the front. I was happy that I was embracing a huge basket full of weeds because I had neglected to add a bra under my t-ahirt.
“Are you missing a pet?” he yelled.
“No,” I said, and thought, “This is going to be a lecture on feeding raccoons.”
“I thought your pet turtle might have escaped,” he said, and pointed to my driveway.
When I saw the massive 10-inch turtle in my driveway, I dropped the basket of weeds, bosom be damned.
“Watch out,” the other man said, “We think it might be a snapping turtle,” I was already bent over having a conversation with it, unconcerned for my bare toes and floppy boobs.
I said, “Oh, I have to get Gary,” and went in to tell him he had to come out NOW for an unspecified reason.
I was discussing the other wildlife with the neighbors by the time Gary stuck his head through the kitchen door the into the open garage.
He said, “Is that an armadill - wait - nope,” he said and shut himself back inside. “Putting on my shoes,” he yelled.
“Big Baby!” I yelled back, and rolled my eyes at the neighbor men.
He has never put in his shoes that fast, and soon he was standing between me and my new friend Mr. Turtle. “Ellen. Get back. That’s a Freshwater Alligator Snapping Turtle.”
The neighbors scattered. Gary got the snow shovel and I got the magnetic metal finder on a stick and we worked in tandem - almost without yelling - to get the creature moved to the big bed of thyme because Gary said it was dying without food or water. It filled up the majority of the 18-inch square snow shovel. I did notice -- as the turtle was biting the magnet head of my metal device -- that it had a really weird tongue, with a hole, like part of it had been partially punched out. The fleshy part of the tongue that should have been in the hole was just dangling there. Like a pink floppy hanging chad, for those who remember the Bush/Gore election. And - this is key - that’s the distinguishing feature of the alligator snapping turtle. It’s an evolutionary lure used to catch fish, because it resembles a worm.
He loved the thyme and the thyme bed, but didn't stay long, just long enough to imagine how good thyme would taste with pork, before Gary had us moving him into the back of Gary’s car.
By the time we had driven to the creek a mile away, the turtle had crawled entirely across the back of the car and his nose was touching the back of the driver’s seat. Gary says the turtle intended to kill me; I said he just wanted to take the wheel because he wanted to test out an electric car.
The turtle now lives in a creek nearby, if he hasn’t made it to the river by now. Good thing Gary was around, otherwise I’d be in the position these British veterinarians were in, cuddling with the cute baby turtle and (ironically) naming it Fluffy.
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