This happened last night while I was out for a walk, no fooling.
A man pulled up to a stop sign at a T and did a California roll through it. What was strange is that he rolled slowly across the road as he turned left, too slowly to be normal. He parked, waved at me, got out and immediately went into the driver’s foot well. The next thing I knew he pulled up next to me and proclaimed that something weird just happened. He produced a turtle, about 5 inches long and 4 inches thick and wide. He said he tried to depress the accelerator, but it wouldn’t move. He found the turtle under the pedal. He was baffled by the turtle and couldn’t imagine where it came from. I suggested that someone was playing a joke on him. What else could it be? Also he had no idea what to do with it. I told him to just put it on the lawn next to us and the turtle would find its own way. I took it from him and put it in a neighbor’s garden. That’s where I always find turtles in my yard. Pretty strange, huh?
My first thought is does he have kids? We know the turtle did not climb into the car by itself (if I am allowed to use this Pronoun…), it’s legs are too short and his little paws just aren’t made to open car doors… Yeah, if the kids did not put it in the car or leave it there, someone was playing a joke on him. I guess he’s lucky it was not a snake…
I’ve heard of Hot Rod Lincoln…maybe that was its name?
All my houses have been around woods and wetlands. We always see turtles laying eggs in the lawn. They like to go into the garage so we have to keep the doors closed during egg laying season.
One time, I was sitting eating lunch in my car, reading the newspaper (that dates it) and a tree frog jumped onto my face. They liked to get between the door jambs during the day. What a startling thing to have happen. My first thought was how that might have turned out if I had been driving at the time…
I expect it was somebody who had a pet turtle but didn’t want it anymore, or couldn’t keep it b/c of losing job & needing to move, put it in a nearby car, hoping to land it a new home. As a kid somebody tied a pheasant to our car with a long string, pheasants aren’t usually pets, so we took it to a nearby corn field and it promptly flew away.
We have a lot of wildlife in our neighborhood. I’m sure it’s a wild turtle. Most years since we’ve moved here 25 years ago there has been a turtle in our yard about this time.
