The Turtle Incident. (Note - This was not covered in the Parenting Handbook) I have three daughters. In order of appearance, Laura, Faith and Abby. When they were kids I would bring home all manner of smaller wildlife that I found on the back roads in my travels. Mostly snakes, lizards, turtles and the like. The deal was that we would keep them for a few days, then return them to exactly where they were found and set them free. I had brought home an Eastern Box Turtle. Abby, the youngest at age 8, had been entrusted with its care for the couple days that it was going to be with us. I was outside mowing the lawn. Middle daughter, Faith, came running out screaming something at me, but with the noise of the mower, it was hard to hear what she was saying. It sounded like "THE TURTLE HAS ABBY BY THE TONGUE! I shut down the mower and said "What?" She screamed, again, "THE TURTLE HAS ABBY BY THE TONGUE! WTF? I ran into the house. OMG!!! I didn't know that a box turtle's head and neck could stretch that far out of its shell. Nor did I know that a person's tongue could come that far out of their head. But, there it was. Abby was holding the turtle up in front to her face, tongue outstretched about four inches, screaming. The turtle's neck was outstretched about four inches with its beak firmly clamped down on the end of the poor girl's tongue! All I could envision was a "V" shaped wedge being cut out of Abby's tongue and a permanent lisp. I started flicking the turtle's head as hard as I could with my finger. I was just about to retrieve my wire cutters to decapitate the creature when it let go. Thankfully, there was just a superficial cut on the tip of Abby's tongue. Me: "HOW THE HELL DID THAT HAPPEN?!" Abby: "I was just trying to kiss him." Faith: "She's lying dad. She was teasing the turtle, sticking her tongue out at him and getting him to snap at it" Me: What the hell is wrong with you Abby? Abby: "I thought turtles were slow." Me: "NOT when it comes to catching food!" The best part is when my wife walked in a few minutes later and heard all the sordid details. She said "Dammit Harry!" "What the hell are you mad at me for?" I asked. She says "The video camera is right there on the table. We would have easily won $10,000 on America's Funniest Videos with that." Pray for me.
The wife had a right go at me yesterday for not sorting the laundry before setting the washer away It got that bad she ended up throwing a bottle of fabric conditioner at me, just missing my head It must have been Lenor though coz it was a bit too close for Comfort
