Another Turtle Story

I have a friend in Pennsylvania who recently moved there from Long Island. "A" reads Sprinkles every day and when she saw yesterday's story about my Uncle Mino's turtle, she was reminded of her friend's pet turtle.

Now, my friend A is over 80 years old, so I'm guessing her friend is more or less the same age. The story goes that A's friend got a pet turtle years ago when she was a little girl. She and her family took extra good care of that turtle, and it kept growing and growing, and soon outgrew its little turtle pool.

What do you do with an ever-growing turtle? Well, into the bathtub it went. But of course, that got to be a problem every time someone had to use the tub for non-turtle activities. The turtle had to come out of the tub, then go back in, then come back out for the next tub-user. Enough to make the poor turtle dizzy, and surely enough for the family to say "Enough!"

The story has a happy ending, however.... that turtle is now "a ward of the state" and has been accepted in their local zoo. No more getting in and out of the family tub, and surely that new-to-the-zoo turtle has made new turtle friends. Possibly the turtle will find a mate and make little baby turtles. (And they all lived happily ever after...)

Of course, now my friend A has started to think "Just how long can a turtle live?"

Which gets me to thinking the same thing about my Uncle Mino's turtle, now being taken care of by my Aunt Dolly since he passed away. I would imagine that living in a controlled climate with no threat of predators would make for a long life. Plus a little homemade spaghetti added to the turtle's vegetarian diet now and then would make for one happy little turtle. No babies, however, since Uncle Mino's turtle never had a mate. (Spaghetti, yes. Sex, no.)