Turtle-y

Deanna appreciates my humor. Unfortunately, I fear she's the ONLY one in this family that appreciates my humor.

Like the situation with turtle-y. Last week, my mother found a turtle in her yard. Not a tiny one, but a nice great-for-a-pet-sized turtle. She couldn't wait to show the kids. Dane and Daelyn became quite the turtle expert, showing all the neighborhood kids how to scratch his neck and head without getting bitten. He seemed quite a friendly turtle, following Mom around the yard as she worked, so Grandpa offered it to the boys.

"But you can only keep it a few days, and then you have to let it go," he told them. They rushed home to ask me.

The boys wanted to put him in a cage on the deck. I vetoed that idea and suggested we make a nice home for turtle under the gardenia bushes on the side of our driveway. The boys agreed. Dane gave him a planter drip-pan full of water and changed it daily. I was pinching raw ground beef off of Don's frozen hamburgers to feed him. Several times a day, different members of the family would traipse out to the gardenias to check on turtle-y, as he came to be called. (Note the verbal aplumb with which we named him.)

We agreed that we would let him go Monday afternoon after school. On Sunday, it occurred to me that there was no need to "let him go". He could "go" anytime he wanted, so I let the boys keep him under the gardenias.

Towards the latter part of the week, twice the boys found him someplace other than the gardenias. Once he was in the yard, once under our van. They carefully replaced him in his little floral home with his pan of water and raw hamburger (which I watched him eat one night - man was that nasty!) This morning, turtle-y was gone. The boys searched and searched, but never found him. While I was sorry for them, I tried to explain that he was a wild animal and HAD to be free to leave when he wanted.

This afternoon, Deanna and I went shopping. As we returned home and were coming in the house, I told her that our little pet had flown the coop.

"Oh, I feel so bad for him. But he couldn't have gotten far. Maybe we should look for him," she added.

"Are you kidding? He's tried twice to escape and the boys keep bringing him back. Last night, he planned it strategically. He waited until all the house lights were out, then made his getaway, quick, so he had hours to travel before the boys checked on him this morning and drug him back. The poor guy was desperate to get away."

Deanna snorted and choked on her root beer float. I have to watch her carefully, though, when we're together. She tends to squirt liquids out her nose.