So, my roommate had her cat flown back to town, and now there is a fuzzy little squeaker in the house. This is actually kinda nice, but the cat was prone to tormenting my turtle by: digging around his terrarium and uprooting his bamboo, trying to eat him, chasing him around and around the glass. So, I decided to try and find Sir Cedric the Entertainer a better home.

I posted an ad on Craigslist, and within three hours, I had received six emails and seven phone messages (three from the same mother, who's son I could hear practicing the tuba in the background, or at least that's what I assumed I heard). I decided to call the first dude back since, well, first come first serve, and he mumbled something about a heated pool.

Turns out, he did indeed have a heated outdoor pond, and a large terrarium for the winter, along with several other baby turtles. He seemed to know what he was doing, he wasn't practicing the tuba, and there would be company for the little tyke. So I agreed to give him the turtle.

He called me several more times, trying to arrange a pickup, and each time asking me why I was "giving up on the little fellow," which just about ripped out my heart strings. His fervor and whispy voice had me imagining him as this puny computer dweeb with an oversize pocket protecter with all his email addresses inserted in a little book inside it. But when he drove up...

...he came in an immense black pickup-semi-truck with double wheels, and the following phrase stenciled in pink on the side: "Cheri, my baby angel..." (with the dots). Inside, he turned out to be an immensely fat man wearing shorts. Wow, white legs. He had long greasy black hair, tufts of matted chest hair peering out of his shirt, and a golden chain on each wrist. Well, he didn't get out of the car, but he did show me a couple albums of turtle-pool pictures, give me his address for "visitation rights," and ask me one last time... "you sure you want to give up on the little fellah?"

Um, dude, you're the right man for the turtle-mommying job. And so long little fellah, sorry I had to give up on you for being a tiny boring turtle, but enjoy entertaining the other baby turtles.