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Stupid Nature
Jun. 13th, 2006 08:58 amSo on my way home from breakfast and dropping Maria off at work I crossed over a bridge in the car, and had to swerve violently to avoid a behemoth of a turtle! It's legs slowly and surely were carrying it into the middle of morning rush hour traffic, and in the Buffalo area "rush hour" doesn't mean gridlocked traffic, it means RUSH!
I knew I had to do something.
The nearest side street wasn't too far away, probably a tenth of a mile or so. I pulled the car on the side street so as not to block traffic, and ran back to the turtle before some unobservant motorist cracked it in two. That's right, I ran. Okay, jogged. Walked at a fast pace?
I knew as I approached. Knew. This big monstrosity could be nothing other than a Snapping turtle. Yet still I held hope. "Maybe," I thought to myself as I started breathing heavy from what I consider a run and others consider a dorky looking power-walk, "maybe it's just a really big box turtle, or painted turtle! Wouldn't that be nice?"
As I got closer I saw the tail, and all hope was dashed. The dragon-like tail whipped back and forth in fury and the hind-leg talons gripped into asphalt like an eagle's claws grind into mere flesh. This creature, this prehistoric dinosaur, was a Snapper. It's vicious head flung back and forth in warning as I approached, telling me "Back off man, I've got a beak-like nose and a ton of biting power, and I'm not afraid to use it!" The cars had stopped for now, except for one man who approached on a mission similar to mine. He parked his car to block any potential oncoming traffic to allow me to pick up the turtle. Thank you, you brave man, whoever you are, for stopping all the invisible traffic so that random person x (me) could risk his fingers.*
It wasn't small. As I gripped it by the back of the shell, between the front and rear legs but closer to the rear so that the back claws couldn't rake my fingers, and held it away from my body so as not to crush the relatively fragile tail I realized something. This sucker was heavy! If I had to guess its weight I would put it between one hundred and fifteen to one hundred and twenty pounds, give or take** one hundred pounds. Still though, it wasn't a light thing to carry a squirming, trying to eat my fingers, wild animal down a freshly-wet-with-dew-and-surprisingly-steep embankment to put it safely down next to the water it originally came from.
My favorite part was how it kept trying to eat my face. It would duck its head inside the shell and try to surprise me by snapping out and up, bashing the back of its head on the top of the shell, making a loud *WHOMP* noise as it hit. The loud and very audible *click* of its beak-like mouth actually was kind of frightening in a "I'm really glad I'm at the advantage here" kind of way.
So, good deed done for the day. I win.***
Jeremiah: 1
Turtle: 0
*Actually, I do appreciate what he was trying to do.
**Take.
***+100 experience.
I knew I had to do something.
The nearest side street wasn't too far away, probably a tenth of a mile or so. I pulled the car on the side street so as not to block traffic, and ran back to the turtle before some unobservant motorist cracked it in two. That's right, I ran. Okay, jogged. Walked at a fast pace?
I knew as I approached. Knew. This big monstrosity could be nothing other than a Snapping turtle. Yet still I held hope. "Maybe," I thought to myself as I started breathing heavy from what I consider a run and others consider a dorky looking power-walk, "maybe it's just a really big box turtle, or painted turtle! Wouldn't that be nice?"
As I got closer I saw the tail, and all hope was dashed. The dragon-like tail whipped back and forth in fury and the hind-leg talons gripped into asphalt like an eagle's claws grind into mere flesh. This creature, this prehistoric dinosaur, was a Snapper. It's vicious head flung back and forth in warning as I approached, telling me "Back off man, I've got a beak-like nose and a ton of biting power, and I'm not afraid to use it!" The cars had stopped for now, except for one man who approached on a mission similar to mine. He parked his car to block any potential oncoming traffic to allow me to pick up the turtle. Thank you, you brave man, whoever you are, for stopping all the invisible traffic so that random person x (me) could risk his fingers.*
It wasn't small. As I gripped it by the back of the shell, between the front and rear legs but closer to the rear so that the back claws couldn't rake my fingers, and held it away from my body so as not to crush the relatively fragile tail I realized something. This sucker was heavy! If I had to guess its weight I would put it between one hundred and fifteen to one hundred and twenty pounds, give or take** one hundred pounds. Still though, it wasn't a light thing to carry a squirming, trying to eat my fingers, wild animal down a freshly-wet-with-dew-and-surprisingly-steep embankment to put it safely down next to the water it originally came from.
My favorite part was how it kept trying to eat my face. It would duck its head inside the shell and try to surprise me by snapping out and up, bashing the back of its head on the top of the shell, making a loud *WHOMP* noise as it hit. The loud and very audible *click* of its beak-like mouth actually was kind of frightening in a "I'm really glad I'm at the advantage here" kind of way.
So, good deed done for the day. I win.***
Jeremiah: 1
Turtle: 0
*Actually, I do appreciate what he was trying to do.
**Take.
***+100 experience.
