It was a lovely, sunny day. I opened the garage door and walked out to check on all of my plants starting to grow. Then I got into my car and backed up.
Suddenly, there was an odd sound; sort of like I might have driven over a Styrofoam box.
I got out of the car and looked. Death happened. For the queasy, don’t read on. Seriously. It ain’t pretty.
My neighbor’s backyard turtle (shell about as large as a CD) had escaped construction going on at their house and had hidden by my garage door and must have sneaked into the garage while I was smelling the roses. I had driven over the poor thing and despite what you see on cartoon programs, turtle shells really are not all that strong. I felt really horrible. Now I had to let the neighbors know. I made the phone call and the woman of the house was more than a tad upset, although she didn’t blame me. At first, she contemplated a funeral. Then she told me to dispose of it as she couldn’t bare to see it. So, rather unceremoniously, the turtle was wrapped in a WalMart bag and was escorted to its final resting place by the Silver State Sanitation Department.
I am truly sorry and hope this does not lead to bad karma…it was an accident, I swear!
There are about 14 inappropriate (but hilarious) jokes that could be made about this incident but I will leave that to the more uncouth members of the board. LOL
In order to repair your karma you will now have to stop everytime you see a turtle trying to cross the road and make sure it gets to the other side unscathed. Only then will the Karma Turtle* be appeased.
*What? You didn’t know there was a Karma Turtle? Well, if there’s a Karma Chameleon there must be a Karma Turtle.
When I see a desert tortoise on a two lane road getting ready to cross I stop and carry it across. You’re supposed to set them down going the same direction you picked them up.
On no account would I do this on a divided highway even though I’m all for preserving them.
My brother was showing off on his brand new fancy-schmancy riding lawn mower when he ran over a large turtle-tortoise thing. Sliced a big chunk out of its shell. It was all bloody & icky & gross. We rushed it to the vet who more or less repaired it with epoxy. We don’t know if it lived, but we hope it did.
I still pull out this story every time I want to make my brother feel bad.
When I was in high school, I hit a turtle at about 60 miles an hour on my way to school one morning. It made quite the bloody mess on the road. Left a stain for a couple of months. I felt horrible about it.
(I was going to Fort Myers and was just on the other side of the Sanibel Causeway toll booth. Watch out for creepy-crawlies coming out of the mangroves if you’re driving there.)