Little Beggers

Originally Posted:
Wednesday, August 9, 2006
8:04:00 PM CDT
Hearing Project Runway rerun for the umpteenth time

We can't have animals in the dorm, so the snapping turtles living in the river running in front of Cafe Scad have been adopted as pets. The turtles know when it's feeding time. They swim to the surface at lunch and dinner time, poke their heads up at the bridge and wait for the clumps of bread or banana to come careening at them. On average, about fifty turtles show up for the daily feasts. They fight, chase and sink each other to get to the morsel first. The little ones take a beating when they are lucky enough to beat a big turtle to the prize, but they hang on to the hunk of bread and fight back tooth and nail to keep it. "Go little turtles, " we cheer. Ginormous fish come up for the event too. I'm not sure what type of fish these are, but they are about 3' to 4' long and 10" to 12" in diameter. There's one turtle that only comes up from the depths of the river when there's a lot of commotion at the surface. We call her Nessie (as in the Loch ness Monster). She's a bigg'en and she's ugly. U-G-L-Y you ain't got no alibi; you ugly, hey hey you ugly. Nessie is about 30" wide x 36" long across the top of her shell. That doesn't include her unnaturally long neck and tail. She has a bit of a giraffe neck. It's awkward for a turtle. She doesn't move as fast as the snappers (boy, they can swim fast!), but the other turtles know to get out of her way. I think she's consumed too much Wonder Bread and the extra calcium and vitamins have super sized her.