Shots Across The Bow

Man vs nature

I was late for work this morning.

But I have a really good excuse. I was going down my driveway when I noticed something unusual in my way. It looked like a large, flat rock, and I was going to just go over it when it moved.

Now that can't be good.

I got out of the car and walked over to see what it was, and it was a turtle. Not just a turtle, but a large snapping turtle. It looked to be about 5 feet long nose to tail, 4 feet wide across the shell, probably weighed about 75 lbs, had a largish chunk ripped out of the top of its shell, and it wasn't in a very hospitable mood. It just sat there looking at my with that reptilian stare, reminiscent of my company commander in boot camp. I walked around it, looking for a good way to get it out of my way, and its eyes seemed to follow me around even though its head never moved, sort of like those spooky pictures in haunted houses; you know, the ones that are always looking at you no matter where you stand?

It was fairly cool this morning, and I know that reptiles are cold blooded (rather like boot camp company commanders) and tend to be sluggish in the early AM. I figured I could sneak up behind it, grab it by its shell, and haul it out of my way. But as I looked at its eyes, and more importantly that large sharp beak, I began to wonder just how sluggish that turtle really was. Maybe he was just playing possum, waiting for me to get close enough to latch onto my arm. ONe of my sons used to have a lizard, and that thing was as slow as Christmas, except when it was time to eat. He'd just sit there, motionless, until that grasshopper got just a little too close and BANG!

Dinner was served.

I kept looking at the turtle, and it kept looking at me, and I found myself thinking of Steve Irwin, Crocodile Stalker and Snake Annoyer par excellence. I know what he would have done. He'd dash back to the house to get Terri and a camera, then jump right on top of the turtle, yell "Crikey!" a few times, talk about how wonderful the snapper is, point out it's razor sharp beak and powerful jaws, tell it how beautiful it is, then drop it off into a nearby pond.

Now I'm not Steve Irwin, but I'm a man, the pinnacle of millions of years of evolution, the top of the food chain. Surely I could handle one measly reptile, right? Of course I could. I might not have jaws that could tear through a NYC phonebook, or teeth sharp enough to cut through leather, but I had a human brain, the finest thinking machine on the planet, more than enough to compensate for any physical weaknesses. I came up with a foolproof plan to take care of this monster.

I woke up my son and told him to go get it.

Isaac just had a class in herpatology, and a large part of his time was spent in an independant research project, catching and tagging snappers in western Massachusetts. Here was a chance for him to broaden his efforts. I was contributing to his education. See, I'm a good father!

He came down and checked out the snapper, grabbed it by its tail and moved it out of the way. The entire time, that turtle kept his eye on me, as if to say "You got lucky today, but I'll be back. He has to go back to school sometime...and then you're all mine."

One thing worries me though. I'm beginning to wonder about this school my son is attending. I don't think they know what they are doing. Isaac said that the turtle was 2 feet long, and might have weighed 12 pounds.

I know it was bigger than that. They must be teaching the metric system up there or some such.

Posted by Rich at June 6, 2003 4:02 PM | TrackBack