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ninanevermoreI believe people grow more compassionate as they mature. As children and young adults, I don't think most people have reached their full capacity for compassion and empathy. I thought about this as I tormented some small plants on my kitchen windowsill this morning. I remembered how in college I used to tease and torment my roommate's small turtle, at least until the turtle taught me to be nice. Because of his lesson and because I'm older and wiser, now I only torture plants.
The turtle's name was Leonard and he belonged to my roommate, Cathy. One spring break, Cathy took a trip to the Texas Hill Country with some friends to inner tube down the rivers and drink themselves oblivious. One of the guys in the group caught a small hatchling turtle (a Texas Pond Slider) in the river and presented it to Cathy as a gift. She named the turtle after a dive bar they went to later that evening in a converted wood-frame house with a hand-painted sign out front that said "Leonard's Bar and Grill."
When Leonard didn't die after a couple weeks of living in a plastic cup in Cathy's dorm room, she bought a book on turtle care since it appeared he would be a long-term commitment. In our apartment Leonard lived in a nice aquarium with a heat lamp to bath under and a nice assortment of rocks to hide under and bask upon. When I knew him, his shell was slightly smaller than a deck of playing cards.
Cathy was an anthropology major and Leonard enjoyed eating the earthworms she brought home from her archeological digs. When we ran out of worms he subsided on turtle food from the pet store. In the spring, we carefully captured any mayflies* that came into the apartment and fed him those.
I'm ashamed to confess that I often teased Leonard was by pretending I was going to eat him. I was not the sort of girl to eat live baby turtles, but Leonard didn’t know this. When he felt threatened, he would hiss and move his arms and legs frantically like he was trying to swim away. It was really cute. Opening my mouth and moving him toward it was the surest way to get him to do this.
I don't need anyone to lecture me that this was wrong. I know it was. I knew it then, too, but I was young and I couldn't resist how adorable he looked when he was upset, so I would upset him deliberately. Afterward, I would give him a nice earthworm to make up for it, but I think Leonard still resented me. One day, I gave him the opportunity to take his revenge, and he snapped at it - literally.
On this occasion the TV was on and I couldn't hear Leonard hissing very well, so after pretending I was going to put him in my mouth I held him up to my ear. Finally presented with a part of my body that was small enough for him to bite, he latched onto it. I gasped and squeaked and dropped him, but he did not fall to the floor. He was firmly attached to the side of my ear, dangling just above my shoulder. Cathy, who was sitting on the floor with me next to Leonard's aquarium, laughed so hard that she fell over.
I suppose if someone had a camera handy it would have made a funny picture. Fortunately, no one did. I reached up, got a firm grip on Leonard's shell, and tugged hard at him to get him off. Then, holding him in front of my face, I looked at him carefully. I know reptiles don't have facial expressions, but I swear he looked triumphant. We came to an agreement that day: he would no longer bite me, and I would stop pretending like I was going to put him in my mouth. I set him back into his tank and gave him some turtle food pellets while Cathy wiped the tears from her eyes.
"That was funny," she said, still trying to catch her breath.
"That hurt," I said. When I inspected my ear in the mirror, I saw I had a red bite mark that looked like a sideways letter U on my ear. For such a tiny creature, the wound was surprisingly deep - it took about 2 weeks to heal. I felt kind of sick for the next couple of days; my head and muscles ached and I had a low grade fever. I suspect Leonard gave me a mild case of salmonella as an exclamation point to the message he wanted to send. I learned my lesson well: I don't tease small animals anymore, or any creature that has a brain and/or a jaw that can bite.
I still have an impish streak that needs an outlet, though, so now I pick on plants. I'm growing some miniature sunflower seedling in my kitchen window. Every morning when I water these little plants (now about 3 inches tall), they are straining toward the morning sunshine. I give them a drink and then turn their little pot so that they are facing away from the window. I know when I check again in a few hours, they will again be facing the sun, but only because I forced them to grow in a new direction. I can practically hear them groan when I turn their little pots away from the sunlight. I know that in their little sunflower hearts, they hate my guts.
But what do I care? At least they can't bite me.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
*many Texans call these large, gangly giant-mosquito looking creatures mosquito hawks but that's just a regional nickname based on the folklore that they eat mosquitoes (they don't).
The turtle's name was Leonard and he belonged to my roommate, Cathy. One spring break, Cathy took a trip to the Texas Hill Country with some friends to inner tube down the rivers and drink themselves oblivious. One of the guys in the group caught a small hatchling turtle (a Texas Pond Slider) in the river and presented it to Cathy as a gift. She named the turtle after a dive bar they went to later that evening in a converted wood-frame house with a hand-painted sign out front that said "Leonard's Bar and Grill."
When Leonard didn't die after a couple weeks of living in a plastic cup in Cathy's dorm room, she bought a book on turtle care since it appeared he would be a long-term commitment. In our apartment Leonard lived in a nice aquarium with a heat lamp to bath under and a nice assortment of rocks to hide under and bask upon. When I knew him, his shell was slightly smaller than a deck of playing cards.
Cathy was an anthropology major and Leonard enjoyed eating the earthworms she brought home from her archeological digs. When we ran out of worms he subsided on turtle food from the pet store. In the spring, we carefully captured any mayflies* that came into the apartment and fed him those.
I'm ashamed to confess that I often teased Leonard was by pretending I was going to eat him. I was not the sort of girl to eat live baby turtles, but Leonard didn’t know this. When he felt threatened, he would hiss and move his arms and legs frantically like he was trying to swim away. It was really cute. Opening my mouth and moving him toward it was the surest way to get him to do this.
I don't need anyone to lecture me that this was wrong. I know it was. I knew it then, too, but I was young and I couldn't resist how adorable he looked when he was upset, so I would upset him deliberately. Afterward, I would give him a nice earthworm to make up for it, but I think Leonard still resented me. One day, I gave him the opportunity to take his revenge, and he snapped at it - literally.
On this occasion the TV was on and I couldn't hear Leonard hissing very well, so after pretending I was going to put him in my mouth I held him up to my ear. Finally presented with a part of my body that was small enough for him to bite, he latched onto it. I gasped and squeaked and dropped him, but he did not fall to the floor. He was firmly attached to the side of my ear, dangling just above my shoulder. Cathy, who was sitting on the floor with me next to Leonard's aquarium, laughed so hard that she fell over.
I suppose if someone had a camera handy it would have made a funny picture. Fortunately, no one did. I reached up, got a firm grip on Leonard's shell, and tugged hard at him to get him off. Then, holding him in front of my face, I looked at him carefully. I know reptiles don't have facial expressions, but I swear he looked triumphant. We came to an agreement that day: he would no longer bite me, and I would stop pretending like I was going to put him in my mouth. I set him back into his tank and gave him some turtle food pellets while Cathy wiped the tears from her eyes.
"That was funny," she said, still trying to catch her breath.
"That hurt," I said. When I inspected my ear in the mirror, I saw I had a red bite mark that looked like a sideways letter U on my ear. For such a tiny creature, the wound was surprisingly deep - it took about 2 weeks to heal. I felt kind of sick for the next couple of days; my head and muscles ached and I had a low grade fever. I suspect Leonard gave me a mild case of salmonella as an exclamation point to the message he wanted to send. I learned my lesson well: I don't tease small animals anymore, or any creature that has a brain and/or a jaw that can bite.
I still have an impish streak that needs an outlet, though, so now I pick on plants. I'm growing some miniature sunflower seedling in my kitchen window. Every morning when I water these little plants (now about 3 inches tall), they are straining toward the morning sunshine. I give them a drink and then turn their little pot so that they are facing away from the window. I know when I check again in a few hours, they will again be facing the sun, but only because I forced them to grow in a new direction. I can practically hear them groan when I turn their little pots away from the sunlight. I know that in their little sunflower hearts, they hate my guts.
But what do I care? At least they can't bite me.
*many Texans call these large, gangly giant-mosquito looking creatures mosquito hawks but that's just a regional nickname based on the folklore that they eat mosquitoes (they don't).
no subject
Date: 2007-04-27 05:34 pm (UTC)I'm not afraid. Sunflowers aren't carnivores. Audry II was obviously a large and ambitious version of the venus flytrap, which are known for their voracious appetites for living creatures. The worse my little plant can do is toss a seed or two in my direction and hope to hit me in the eye with it.