the jaws that bite, the claws that gouge

How to tell if it’s a Monday:

Did you just clean fresh turtle pee from one of your car’s floor mats in the parking lot before work, pinning your tie up high onto your shirt to keep from re-living reptile urine all day long? If you answered yes, then it’s safe to say it’s a Monday.

Old dude (I’m assuming male, but hell if I know; “he” had an old-weathered-soldier quality, to my mind, especially since what followed was, for both of us, a battle) was about to wander out from where he’d fallen down the curb and into the road about 1/5 of a mile from my driveway, as I was leaving my neighborhood today. I was by him before I could really react, then remembered a rainwater-runoff ravine about a block away, and turned back to get the adventurous turtle before someone speeding through our neighborhood took him out, crunch, splat, raw meat. I already had visions of seeing that when I got home tonight.

I put on my flashers and get out of the car. So, now what?

Before deciding to save a quickly pissed off old, and very bulky, snapping turtle from out of the road, it’s really best to have a plan, for getting him into your car, and even more, for getting him back out. It was a long and ugly fight, including one fail, when I realized how long his neck actually was, and how close my hands were to the beakish maw at the end of that lunging neck, and I dropped him a few feet into the road, chipping off a small piece of his shell (but thankfully, not cracking it; that would have been awful, and really unforgivable), before I thought to wrap this bony piece of fury in a loose piece of plastic from my trunk, so he couldn’t so easily take off my fingers or gouge my arms.

In the meantime, someone pulls up behind me. An older lady (as in older than me, which I guess makes her old, since, well). She runs over to take a picture, telling me she’s sorry her granddaughter isn’t there to see this. She clearly wants to help, up to a point, getting a plastic mat from her car that she thinks I can scoop Snappy Joe onto, but there’s no there there. I thank her regardless.

Soon after, I manage to get the big guy into my car, on the front passenger-side floor, where he promptly pees things up pretty damn good (note: old turtle pee does not smell one tiny bit like roses). Then he makes inroads into my dash panel with his head, jamming himself into position. At this point, I take my one and only picture of him, as you saw above; sadly, I did not think to get one of the front of him, since I was already so very late for work. He was a damn beauty, if you’re into living wildlife, that is.

So around the corner I go, pulling up beside the ravine I plan to persuade him into, flipping my flashers on again. Only then I can’t get him to come down from his attempted hiding place. Joe does, however, kick at me, and pee some more.

Finally, and I have no clue how, but I get him backed up, and he promptly lurches toward the seat, and tries to muscle his way under it. This turns out to be much worse, for me. Joe, as I now think of him, digs those big claws into the carpet, and leaves me little left to grab on him except treacherous hind legs. I keep trying, for several minutes, with him occasionally lifting that long neck from where it’s pressed against the parking brake console, and lunging at my hands.

I have no idea how I get him loose, but wrapping him loosely again in plastic, I whisk his iresome body onto the grass, where he rolls a little and rights himself. Unfortunately, the ravine is still about 8-10 feet away. So, back to the plastic, and more of his signature move in the direction of my feet, and fingers.

I get him to just above the ravine, on a slight incline, and the bastard promptly turns and faces the road above, like that’s his new destination. You’ve got to effing be kidding me.

So now he’s in a spot that I can’t really get to, to try and turn him toward the watery ditch. In utter frustration, later for work by the minute, I grab a small umbrella from the car, meaning to push him, as best I can, in the direction he doesn’t seem to want to go. But he does me one better, latching onto the umbrella itself. At which point I lift him a little off the ground, and he promptly tumbles the few inches into the clear water, immediately swimming the hell away.

Adios, Joe. May you find yourself to no new roads.

Ironically, he is now heading back in the direction of where I found him originally. But he shouldn’t get there anytime soon …

And really, no matter what else can be said, one more day alive is at least one more day alive.

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