The Turtle Rescue

It was a beautiful, cloudless day. And after being stuck indoors through a few rainy days lately, I thought it would be a great day to take Reese to the park. Sadly, she’s still too young and small for most of your standard playground equipment, but I figured I could run around with her on my shoulders and make airplane noises if nothing else. The point was we both needed to get outside. We loaded up into the car and, in her own way, Reese looked interested in a change of pace.

As we were about halfway on our drive to the park, the turtle entered our story…or we entered his depending on how you look at it. He was perched on top of the curb, leaned pretty far out over the edge, with his eyes locked on the other side of the street.

A busy street.

I played it out in my mind. In the next few moments, he was going to take his next step and tip himself over the edge. He would end up on his back with legs flailing in all directions. And of course a car would pick that exact moment to come along and…well…I tried not to think about the sound. And that would be the end of what could have been a long and fulfilling turtle existence.

Now I’m not sure why, but ever since I was a kid I’ve had a soft spot for turtles. Maybe it was all those episodes of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles…who knows? The point is that I’m the guy that will park his car in the middle of the street, turn on the hazards, get out of the car, and carry turtles to safety despite honks and confused looks from other drivers. But this time was different…Reese was with me.

I decided to play it a little safer than usual so I pulled onto a side street and parked.  But I still couldn’t just leave Reese in the car. It was a warm day and I didn’t know how long the process was going to take. I unbuckled Reese and pulled her out of her seat as she looked around with a little confusion about where we were and what daddy was doing in front of some random house on a random street.  Instead of explain it to her I carried her as quick as I could to the last spot I’d seen the turtle. Thankfully, I got to him (we’ll call him Donatello…Don for short) before he tipped into the street. But now there was a new problem: carrying a baby and a turtle at the same time.

I’ve never thought of turtles as being especially dirty or disease-ridden, but they do live in water and hang out in muddy spots. I needed to carry Don to safety but also keep Reese from touching this fascinating new creature that she’d never seen before and was currently reaching towards. I was also starting to gain the attention of passing drivers. Did they think I was trying to feed my baby to the turtle, or maybe feed the turtle to my baby?

Well, without other options or extra hands, I ended up tucking Reese under my right arm and picking up Don with my left hand and waited for a safe break in traffic to cross over both sides of the street to the nearby pond. As I started walking across, I wished I could have taken a picture of myself carrying a baby under one arm and a decent sized turtle in the other. Then I started thinking up how to caption such a shot. I think my favorite was: “Fort Worth Dad Arrested For Involvement In Underground Turtle Versus Baby Fights.” Thankfully, the trip across the street ended up being arrest and baby/turtle fight free. We made it safely to the pond and I managed to get one shot of Reese and Don on the shore before I put Don in the water.

They didn’t seem too interested in each other anymore. Oh well.

After Don swam away, I carried Reese back across the street to our car and buckle her back into the seat, careful not to touch her with my turtle carrying hand, and managed to use up the remainder of the bottle of hand sanitizer I had in the car with me. The park turned out to be pretty fun, even though it was almost exclusively daddy shoulder rides for Reese along with airplane noises. Still too early to tell if she will like turtles as much as her dad. If she takes after her mom, she’ll probably be more of a dog person. I’ll be happy as long as it’s not rabbits, those long ears and soulless eyes freak me out.

All-in-all, it was a fun day. And hopefully, Don enjoys his new place.

More days to come.