I didn’t mean to get revenge. Honest. It was all just an accident. My nieces were visiting and it was a nice summer day. I took them out in the lake for a ride in the jon boat and kayak and as we were paddling about I spotted a small turtle sunning on a log in the weedier end of our slough. I told the nieces to be quiet and we paddled sneakily toward the turtle so I could point him out to my youngest niece. “See him? No, right there. On the left. On the top of the log.” And then the boat was floating right by him. He plopped off of the log into the water and before I knew what was happening my 10-year-old instincts had taken over and my hand was shooting out from my body as I lunged forward to snag the turtle from the shallows.
The summer I was 10, I kept 23 turtles in a cardboard box in my closet. My parents didn’t know. I considered it a humanitarian effort (and yes, very fun). My next door neighbor, a retired Southern Baptist preacher and fisherman, considered it his responsibility to catch our local turtles and dispatch them by dropping a concrete cinder block on their shells. They deserved it. After all, they stole his bait. So, my response to his ethnic cleansing was the collection in my closet. 23 turtles.
Old habits die hard. As I continued to paddle around the lake with my nieces we spotted another hatchling sized turtle on another log. Rinse. Repeat. So we had two turtles, Yellow Belly Sliders, dubbed Rocky and Squirt, crawling around with us in the boat. When we got back to the house, I put them in a small fishbowl and we set up a little habitat with rocks and plants. My youngest niece had detailed conversations with them about what they liked and didn’t like and how they were feeling to confirm that they were indeed happy. I remember those turtle-conversing days, but times and imagination have changed: my niece informed me that the turtles would like to have a computer in their tank, certainly something I wouldn’t have imagined back in my day. Or, perhaps turtles have simply become more demanding.
The little turtle bowl was meant to be a few day project for the kids. But of course, I got attached. The turtles graduated to a full size tank with a filter, a log, plants, and the addition of small fish caught from the lake. Rocky and Squirt can be adorable. They stretch their long green necks up toward the light. They swim over to the side of the tank when I walk up. They like to dive from the log into the waterfall caused by the filter. And they yawn, adorably, underwater. But don’t let them fool you, there is a darker side to turtle personas.
And this is where my revenge, my guilt, my glee come in to play. At this age, turtles are very hungry and especially carnivorous (Feed Me, Seymour). I comply to their needs and catch crickets, frogs, beetles, and bugs for them. It’s not a difficult job. I live on a lake in a state that is humid, green, and wet. There is no shortage of bugs. All I need to do is turn on the porch light at night, wait an hour, and collect some creepy crawlies off the screen door. Most of these creatures are dead by the time I drop them in the tank and the turtles rush to crunch and tug at their endoskeletons to get to the meat. Then, one night, I stepped onto the deck during another slug invasion. Slugs. Turtles. Slugs. Turtles. Hmmm. You can see where this is going.
I convince myself that this is the natural order of things. Far better than just stomping the slugs. Certainly. I’m not senselessly killing them. I am delivering them to the turtles to be…well, sensefully killed. I place a slug on the floating log in the aquarium, and… do you remember that scene in Jurassic Park with the goat tied to the tree in the TRex enclosure? It’s exactly like that, but stickier. The slug is relieved to be out of my fingers. He unfurls his body and begins to make his way, innocently, along the log. The tank probably seems pretty and peaceful to him. Damp. Woody. A few floating plants. The relaxing sound of water. Meanwhile, Rocky’s small green head appears in the water at the other end of the tank. He makes his approach as stealthily as an awkward Susan B Anthony Coin with legs can be stealthy. Rocky uses his front legs to pull himself ever so slightly up onto the log and then at top speed his neck extends and his mouth closes on the soft, delicious, unprotected body of the slug. Rocky retreats from the log, slug in mouth, and I watch as he eats him happily underwater. The eating is not as straightforward as I would like. Slugs, as I have mentioned previously, are slimy. Rocky does not like the slime so as he consumes the slug there is a slow process of coughing back up the slug slime and tugging it from his mouth with his claws. It is not pleasant and the water turns gray from slug guts. However, slugs are by far clearly the turtle’s favorite food. If only one slug is in the tank, it becomes a game of tug of war. Tug of Slug.
I, of course, only feed these slugs to the turtles out of necessity. Like Seymour, I offer up the sacrifice because what else am I to do. The turtles are growing and hungry. They need substance. Of course, this has nothing to do with revenge on the slugs. I am not pleased at this turn of events. I don’t do a little happy dance near the tank. I don’t cheer “GO Rocky Go!” I don’t take bets on the slug/turtle death match. Certainly, I never watch the slaughter. I choose to avert my eyes. And, I never, ever take pictures of it.
that was so cute and funny!
they look like a turtle my brother had when he was little.
Posted by: tessa | July 28, 2008 at 12:39 PM