Snapping Turtles are Jerks

The other day the family and I were on our way home from a hike. Originally, the purpose behind taking the kids for hikes was to instill in them an appreciation for nature, and living things and beauty, and to keep them from becoming sedentary fatsos who sit on pillows eating chocolate and watching reruns of SpongeBob NoPants all day. Quickly, the mission of hikes shifted from this to "tiring out the children so they quit running around like energetic snow monkey crackheads on meth." Many times, hikes do not succeed in tiring them out.

As we were leaving the park, I noticed a large stone in the road. This seemed hazardous. I stopped the car and got out. As I walked over to the stone, it walked away from me. "This is odd behavior for a stone," I said to no one in particular. Then I realized that the stone was actually a big Snapping Turtle, and the world started making sense again.

I decided that my good deed of the day would be to help the turtle across the road, like he was an old lady or something. So I walked over to him and tried to shove him with my foot. This is when I realized that turtles are heavy. The turtle realized that some big thing was trying to kick him, so he made an angry turtle hissing noise. It was not friendly.

I decided that I needed to show him who was boss, so I stepped right on top of him, asserting my dominance. He stuck his neck way far out (Side note: Turtle heads and necks look like green penises with faces), then whipped back towards the middle of his shell and tried to bite my shoe. It was pretty quick for a turtle. Startled, I said, "Hey, Fuck You Asshole!!"

I decided to switch tactics, so I got a stick and started trying to poke him across the road. I figured it would work, as I had seen policemen do it to homeless people numerous times in the past with considerable success. I found out that there is a big difference between homeless people, and angry, penis-headed turtles. The turtle felt me poking him and whirled around to face me. He did this fast, like he was laying on a Lazy Susan. He reached his face out again and bit the stick. Hard. Then he shook the stick like a puppy would do, if the puppy was really mean, and had a shell, and smelled like my nut sack after a really humid baseball game.

At this point I gave up. Outside of picking him up, which seemed dangerous considering he weighed 30 pounds and wanted to bite my extremities off, I couldn't think of a way to move him. I figured the Crocodile Hunter would have known what to do, but I didn't. I considering trying to scare him off the road, but after he started bluff charging me like a very small Grizzly Bear I didn't figure he would scare easily.

So I left. Screw that turtle! Have fun dying.