When I was thinking about the kid with the turtle on the leash, I remembered this.
I knew Oz preferred to keep his distance from reptiles like snakes and so on, but the turtle thing didn't really register, because turtles are about as threatening as rocks. Sure, if a turtle is flying through the air towards your head, you duck, but otherwise they're not that alarming, except for snapping turtles which are pretty easy to identify before any biting happens.
One day, many years ago, I was over at his house, which is way out in the suburbs and has a backyard that bleeds into the woods. Even so, it doesn't ever feel all that woodsy out there. Most of his encounters with wildlife are of the squishy nature, because the wildlife has been chewed into little bits by the many cats that live in his house. Occasionally the odd chipmunk, squirrel, or blue jay makes it into (and out of) the house alive, but that's about it.
But on this day, I found a box turtle walking around in his front yard, probably looking for the woods. When I was a kid, we had reptile pets, including various turtles, snakes, and lizards, so I didn't think anything of picking it up, at which point it withdrew into its shell, and taking it into the house with me.
I held it up to show him. "Look, it's a turtle! It was walking around—"
"Get that thing out of here."
"But it's just a turtle." I looked at the turtle and it looked back at me from inside its shell.
"Get it out of here."
Okay, I returned the turtle to the yard, which suited it fine as the whole home visit thing wasn't its idea, after all. When I went back inside, I was instructed to wash the turtle slime off my hands. "Turtles don't have slime," I said, but washed my hands anyway.
Thus was peace restored.
When I reminded him (a minute ago) of the turtle incident, he said, "I like turtles just fine. In the wild." I guess we'll have to limit ourselves to mammalian pets.
359 words | September 27, 2005 07:42 PM | Felis Major