…I’m a pisser.
Hm.
Just when I finally manage to get a grip on British slang, it seems I’ve lost my comprehension of the New York equivalents.
…and …wooden bottom? I’ve heard of peg legs, but this is something new…
To Wang-Ka, once again another coffee snorter of a story. I will have to learn to avoid food and liquids at the computer. This mess will take a while to clean up and I just discovered that I didn’t ruin my keyboard.
And in the spirit of the thread…
I and family had just moved to Texas. I went out on errands and returned to my house to discover my kitchen sink occupied by a big turtle *about 24 inches long) and trying to get out of the sink. On asking my wife as to why we’ve adopted a turtle to go with our dogs and cats, she told me that the kids had brought it home out of the street to keep the cars from running it over. “How did they find it?”, I asked her. “They heard Dixie howling and discovered it attached to her tongue.” was the reply. So they thought how cool, let’s take it home. My son told me that it was very angry about being taken off the street. My wife tried to feed it some lettuce but it just hissed and tried to get out. Right around this point in the conversation, it hissed and tried to get out again and I noticed it was a snapping turtle. I called each of the kids inside and asked to see their fingers and told them they were lucky to still have all of them, since these were strong enough to bite them off. The two youngest were wide eyed, the eldest just said, “Does this mean we can have snapper turtle soup?”. She was very displeased that I told her no, since I don’t know how to butcher a turtle.
Just in case you’re wondering, Dixie is the neighbor’s 90 pound Lab pit bill mix with a sweet disposition and a reputation in the neighborhood for being dimwitted.
I returned the turtle to the nearest lake.
Thanks for reminding me how brutal these damned things are. I can’t believe I actually used to walk in the turtle-infested* creek behind my house barefoot.
Oh, and no thanks for allowing me to join the legions of Dopers with sprayed monitors. 
Mainly sliders and soft-shells, but a few snappers.
“Once I was swimmin’ 'cross Turtle Creek,
Man them snappers all ‘round my feet.
Sure was hard tryin’a cross that thing,
With both hands holdin’ my ding-a-ling-a-ling”
-Chuck Berry
I just got the oddest look from my cat… well maybe it was just the cat.
BRAVO! BRAVO! ENCORE!
Aww.
Poor doggie…
See, in a story where a DOG gets hurt, it’s not FUNNY.
In a story where a HUMAN gets hurt, it’s funny as hell.
It occurs to me that this truism may be the whole reason why we can’t share a planet in friggin’ peace.
Being a humanitarian animal lover, I once pulled over to the side while driving to save a gigantic turtle that was hanging out in the middle of the road. It turned out to be the biggest snapping turtle I’d ever seen. It had a wicked looking hooked beak and–I kid you not–SPINES on its shell. The edges of the shell were scalloped, and it had killer looking claws. This thing must have been a foot and a half long. Have you ever seen the (really bad) kids’ movie “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II,” where Shredder mutates a snapping turtle? That’s what this thing looked like. I thought if I could grab it by the back of the shell, I could haul it off the road. I slowly reached for it, and I swear the thing JUMPED into the air and made a snap at my fingers. I shrieked in surprise (I hadn’t known turtles could jump), which brought my boyfriend running from the car in alarm. We finally got it off the road by coaxing it to bite the edge of my cd case, then dragging it off into a ditch. That sumbitch must have weighed 20 pounds. Those are mean suckers.
Oh, no.
The only safe way to handle a snapper is by the tail. And that’s assuming you carry him in such a way that he can’t reach your arm with those rear claws on his feet.
I made a point of reading up on this after the incident in question…
I just ignored any more stranded turtles I happened to see in the road 
But it’s probably a useful thing to know.
Dammit, Wang-Ka!!!
I stumbled across this and nased Diet Coke all over my keyboard. My nose hurts!!
Especially since it brings back memories. I’m a graduate of SWTSU (now known as TSU San Marcos), and have had my butt in those self-same waters amidst the wanna-be Great White Shark snapping turtles.
Fortunately, I did NOT wind up with one hanging off my ass. That was too damn funny!
Ah.
Then you know all about City Park, just past Sewell Park, which is where Bob picked up his passenger. Irritating thing, too – we’d just gotten in the water, upstream at the falls.
Boy, first the “Bad Guys” thread, then this one. It’s been a week for my old leftovers bobbing to the surface, hasn’t it?
Nice to be appreciated. 
This particular part cracked me up.
I love these stories–makes work much more bearable (only partially because I’m not working when I’m reading them.)
Not that I could ever pretend to be in the same category as the Mighty Master Wang-Ka, but I’ll add my humble addition to the snapping turtle thread.
First, a little background:
My father is from Florida. He was a redneck, used to fishing, drinking, hunting, drinking, and a little more drinking. So the neighbors brought over all sorts of things for him to cook & eat.
OK, now the story:
When I was little, (about 1975 or so), there was a neighbor (let’s call him Joe), who drank and fished even more than my dad did. They used to go to the farmers pond not far from home and catch whatever they could.
The farmer stocked this lake by releasing whatever he caught in the Mississippi river. The river itself was only a few hundred yards away.
One day Joe comes to my dad and asks him: “Can you make turtle soup? I got a turtle in the car that would make dandy soup.”
My dad says, “Sure, I can make soup. Bring in the carcass.”
Joe says, “Now, that’s a problem. See, it’s still alive”
Dad replies, “Bring it in. I’ll kill it”
Joe says, “No way, man. I’m not getting that close to it again.”
So Dad goes out to the car. (remember, this is about 1975.) Joe drove a 1968 Cadillac. In the trunk he had managed to load a snapping turtle the size of Delaware. Almost 17 inches long, this monster took up the entire trunk.
And he was pissed.
Dad looks at Joe, and asks him, “So how did you catch him?”
“Fishin. He ate my minner, and I dragged him in.”
“So how did ya get him in the trunk?” Dad persued.
“I used my tire iron. I let him bite it, and lifted him. Shoot, he was a heavy mutha”
Dad asked the $10,000 question. “So where’s the tire iron?”
Joe replied, “In the trunk. I didn’t wanta to mess up my Caddy”
“Well, you sure messed up your Caddy now.” Dad laughed. “I ain’t gonna go near a snapper that big. He’ll take your arm off.”
In the end, they had to tie 4 broom handles together, and stick in the turtle’s mouth to lift him out of the trunk. He still managed to snap 2 of them.
After discovering that they did not have a pot big enough to make turtle soup out of a critter that big, they let him go.
And they never got the smell of turtle out of the trunk of the Caddy.
… :eek:
Yeah, well, I believe it. I believe that a snapper could get that big. And I believe that a snapper that big could bite a broomhandle in half, without much trouble.
…and now that I think about it, I guess I shouldn’t have any trouble believing that some idiot would put a Jurassic-sized snapping turtle in his trunk, with no thought whatsoever as to how he was going to get the damn thing out…
Please, tell us about that last time his ass was on fire! :eek:
Oops… nevermind! It’s all laid forth here.
I always knew no good would ever come out of parachute pants.
I’ve heard of a turtle head poking out of one’s ass, but one poking in is a new one on me.