The Teenage Turtle

Perhaps she is just tuning into my inner teenager, or perhaps because she is reaching her 13th year, but my turtle has come to her teenage angst.

How do I know this?  You are right to ask and wonder, especially if you have never met my turtle, T-mina, as my sister used to call her.

She is a lovely turtle... I have tried many times, unfruitfully, to photograph her beauty.  So, in the past, I have just borrowed photos from the generous internet.  Now, you can just imagine it.

But, she gets to certain point in the year, I think it is always summer ... when she seems so hungry (STARVING, she might say if she could really talk) that she eats insatiably. 

There were 24 fish I put in the tank the day before I left last week ... and the two that were left as I was leaving for the airport the following morning at 5:45am.

And then the 18 I put in the tank yesterday, to find only 6 swimming around with her this morning.

The teenager part comes from all the ones she kills but doesn't eat.

It is mostly annoying ... and dirty.  But when I am leaving town or someone else is taking care of her, it becomes more than annoying. I worried about her all week, even though I knew she wouldn't be *starving* for real.  But there was that one summer that the person watching her let me know that T had killed half of the fish.  I thought I would have to find someone else to take care of T so disgusted was her caretaker.

I am going to remember this and only buy 6 fish at a time for the rest of the summer -- even if it means that I have to go every three days for fish.

I just get tired of having to try to net up all the fish parts and the filter that now needs to be cleaned and whether or not the water will also have to be changed... really, T, this is not the right time of the year for this extra work ... exams in three days.