Animal acts

It’s weird but since Saturday I have had 3 acts of animal rescue. On Saturday as we were driving down a 3 lane wide road, in the distance I saw something moving across the road, slowly. Oh shit, it’s a turtle. I didn’t want the ill advised turtle to become roadkill so I sped up to it and whipped off to the road shoulder. There were cars coming but far enough away that they would have time to slow when they saw a man running out into the road in front of them. I scooped the turtle up and got to the median. As I was holding him he used his only natural defense and tried to pee on me. Once traffic on the other side cleared I ran across and set him on the far bank and made sure he was continuing on his way.

Yesterday, after I picked up Nicki after work, I was turning left out of the nursing home. As I did I spotted in my mirrors something trying to slide across the road, obviously it was injured. I continued on but then swung around, parked the car to see what was going on. It looked to be a full sized bullfrog. His one front arm looked like it was crushed and he was trying to drag himself across the street by pushing his back legs. I assumed some idiot that wasn’t paying attention hit him but I didn’t know for sure. He was big, as big as my hand. It was so sad. I had an empty cigar container I found discarded by the street that I used to pick him up with. He didn’t really struggle much as I held him. I carried him to the edge of a lake at the golf course across the street. I thought that possibly even though his arm was no good for walking, maybe he could still swim. I sat him by the edge to see if he would go in on his own. He just kinda sat there. So I gave him a little nudge and he went in the water. However once in, all he could do was roll, he was unable to swim. Well I didn’t want him to drown so I scooped him back out. I wound up carrying him over to some bushes nearby and setting him under there, hoping that at the least he could die in peace. I sat him down, petted him and told him to rest as he just looked at me . Poor thing, made me feel like shit.

I told Ali of my attempted frog rescue. As we drove home we ran into some heavy downpours. As we were within a couple of miles of home what do I see but another damn turtle trying to cross the road. I pull off again and hop out into the pouring rain. There was a van with a trailer coming and instead of slowing and trying to avoid the turtle, he kept normal speed and straddled the turtle with his wheels. I yelled at the asshole as I ran out once he passed. Luckily the turtle avoided getting clipped by the axles. I picked him up and ran him across the road and set him on his way. By the time I got back in the car I looked like I jumped in the pool with my clothes on. I was still furious at the jerk that ran over the turtle. People are idiots, the older I get, the less I want to deal with them.

Mexicans may be hard workers but I have found that they also have no ideas about littering. Evidently Mexico is such a shithole that littering is just a fact of life. Our property constantly has empty cans of cerveza, plantain chip bags, and pork rind sacks littering the roadside. It’s annoying.