Last Wednesday I came home pretty late after a long day at work. As I walked in the door, I could see that Kristal's room light was off, so I weaved my way through the living room in the dark, trying not to wake her. A few minutes later I hear her call from her room, "So did you like the new pet I got you?"
"The what?"
I had seen the cardboard box sitting in the middle of the living room floor as I tried not to trip over it, but I had assumed it was more things she had yet to unpack. Turns out she had found a turtle on Seventeen Mile Drive as she drove home that night and decided to dissuade it from its chosen career as a speed bump. So here we had an
endangered Hickatee in a box in the middle of our living room. Cool. After naming him Osbert after a nearby street, Kristal had given up on trying to get him to eat, having already tempted him with a few pieces of my cereal and a few pieces of bell pepper from the pizza place down the street. I figured Osbert was too scared to eat, plus turtles don't have to eat every day anyway, so no big deal. We decided to leave him be for the night, then bring him in to work the next day to be passed on to the local animal rescue center.
About an hour later we made an exciting discovery: Hickatees are nocturnal animals. Kristal and I had each settled down for the night when there was a rather loud noise coming from the living room, similar to the noise one would make when tearing cardboard. We came out of our rooms to inspect the damage, but were relieved to find that he hadn't broken free. Osbert had decided he would scrape his claws along the walls of the box in an effort to tunnel out of his enclosure. He wasn't making much headway, but Osbert was one of those patient turtles; he had all night. After another hour contemplating the merits of turtle stew, I finally made it to sleep to the melodious sound of reptilian industriousness next door.
The following morning Osbert was still in his box, though the box was a little wetter than it had been the previous night. It also had some pretty impressive scratches and tears, but apparently one night had not been enough for poor Osbert's jailbreak. We carted him off to work with us, putting him in the kids room until he could be passed on to someone from the animal rescue center later that morning. I spent much of that morning trying to convince the 4 and 5-year-olds that the Hickatee's name was "Hickie", but was met with little success. So here's to Osbert "Hickie" the Hickatee - hoping he's still scratching his little heart out somewhere not in my living room.
