My roommate has two turtles. They live in a big aquarium in the living room. There's a big one and a little one, and their names are Frankie and Judo. And no, I don't know which one is which.
I am concerned about them. Don't worry, they're in no danger; they look perfectly healthy to me. But they very much contradict two preconceived notions I had about turtles, both of which were formed by watching the televised adventures of the Teenage Mutant Ninja variety of the species.
Notion #1: Turtles are very smart (see: Donatello).
Notion #2: Turtles are badass and tough (see: Raphael).
Frankly, these turtles are neither. Nowhere is this illustrated more clearly than when they try to swim against the current of the water filter. It's absolutely heartbreaking to watch them struggling against it in vain, flailing their little turtle flippers and staying absolutely stationary, too weak to fight the current and too dumb to swim around it.
These turtles have always suffered from a distinct lack of ambition. When she first got them, my roommate put a few small fish in the tank to provide live food for them. The turtles never went after them, and the now-fully-grown fish remain in the tank as a taunting reminder of their slothful ways.
When we put brine shrimp in for them recently, the turtles actually had to contend with the fish to get at them. Can you imagine the embarrassment I felt at seeing this spectacle? It was like going to your child's Little League game and watching him run around the bases the wrong way. These are turtles named after a style of martial arts and the Mafia-connected Sinatra, and they're having their prey stolen from them by fish that were meant to be their prey in the first place.
Clearly, these are pampered turtles. They only eat food pellets, and I was quite surprised to find—no joke—a small jar of shell and skin conditioner\ resting on top of the aquarium. (Incidentally, there's a label on the jar that reads, ""Note: Massage any excess cream into your nails and cuticles for very pleasant results!"" So I don't know why anyone buys fancy expensive moisturizers when there's perfectly good turtle cream to be had.)
So what's to be done to toughen up these turtles? Well, if we had a female turtle or two in there, it might boost their self-confidence a little, but frankly we're not even sure if our turtles are male. None of us in the house knows how to sex a turtle, or at least none of us is making this ability public.
However, the turtles sometimes do some kind of crazy water ballet where they flail about face to face, so perhaps it's a mating dance. Maybe we have a male and female turtle and they're getting it on while we're not looking. They might even be two male turtles; there's no prejudice in our aquarium. It's like ""Brokeback Mountain."" Or should I say, ""BrokeSHELL Mountain?"" Ha ha! Get it? That's so hilari—hey, what's that siren?
""ATTENTION JUSTIN ZYDUCK! YOU ARE THE TEN MILLIONTH PERSON TO TAKE EVEN THE SLIGHTEST SUGGESTION OF HOMOEROTICISM AND RELATE IT TO ‘BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN' IN AN INANE WAY. CONGRATULATIONS: YOU HAVE OFFICIALLY RUN THIS POP-CULTURE REFERENCE INTO THE GROUND.""
Oh my God! This is so unexpected! I have a million people to thank.
Frankie and Judo, for starters.
Fact: Leonardo was the raddest Ninja Turtle. Debate this if you dare at morrisonbass@yahoo.com.
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