“Will you look at that? I didn’t know there was a river back here.”

I was about 12 or 13 years old and had been taking a walk through the woods near my father’s new upstate home when I came across the ‘river’. And by river, I really mean pathetically small stream about a quarter of a mile from my dad’s house, which he shared with his new wife and my new step-sisters. They were nice enough as far as I could tell, I guess. My mother called them evil, back-stabbing, husband stealing, home breaking, whore-slut witches, of course. But still, I thought they were nice. Of course, my viewpoint was a little skewed by my tweenage libido.

You see, they weren’t really related to me and they all had boobies.

Anywaste, my brother and step-sisters had become engrossed in some strange game involving dolls, feather boas and some tiny teacups. And although they tried to make it sound exciting, like what happened in Boston back in 1773, this so-called “Tea Party” seemed very lame to me. The fact that they wouldn’t let me wear the pink hat with the single yellow flower in it had nothing to do with my decision to throw down my powder blue smock, tell them they were ‘poopie-heads’ and stalk out of the room.

In my defense, it was a really nice hat.

So, instead of wasting my time drinking imaginary tea with imaginary friends, I decided to take a walk through the woods and find me some creepy-crawly things to catch. I might have been young, but I knew far more about woodsy creepy-crawlies than almost anyone else in the world. This was long before the Discovery channel, Nigel or the Crocodile Hunter were around to teach kids about the animal kingdom, but somehow I managed to become an expert of snakes, frogs and insects anyway.

You could have called me the Chocodile Hunter.

So, there I was standing by the edge of a small stream behind my father’s house. It was a beautiful summer’s day and I decided that I would search the banks of the shore for wildlife, catch anything interesting and maybe bring it home to show my dad. I thought it was fun to bring things home to my dad because he and I would play 20 Questions whenever I did. It would go something like this;

“What have you got there, son?”
“I dunno.”
“Is it alive?”
“I think so.”
“Did you get it from outside?”
“Maybe.”
“It looks dirty.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Is it dangerous?”
“I dunno.”
“So, what is it?”
“I dunno.”
“Sigh. Maybe I should ask it what it is, hmmm?”
“Maybe.”
“Ok then, well? What are you?”
“Well sir my names Dave, but nowadays most people call me ‘Stinkin’ Bum’.”
“See son? That’s why we don’t feed wild things. They tend to follow us home.”
“Sorry daddy.”
“Excuse me sir, but the kid said something about Pudding Pops and Fresca?”

As I was searching the shoreline, I saw what looked like a rock further down the stream move a little, so I walked over to investigate. To my surprise I found that the moving rock was no rock at all, but a wild snapping turtle! Thinking about how proud my dad would be when I came home with a real, live turtle, I quickly reached down to pick him up before he could escape back into the stream. Grabbing him by his shell, I brought him up to eye level for a better look. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see anything because he was hiding from me in his shell.

The little bastard.

Wanting to see his face, I decided to poke at his head with my finger until he came out. I poked and I poked, but he steadfastly refused to expose his head for my viewing pleasure and I began to become upset. But no matter how hard I poked, he still stayed hidden away in his shell. This got me angry to no end, and so I began to mock the turtle.

[poke]
“Hey ugly! Why are you so scared? Don’t you want to come out?”
[poke]
“You’re a stupid turtle, aren’t you? You’re so dumb you forgot how to get out of your own shell, didn’t you?”
[poke, poke]
“Come on! Let me see you’re face, stupid! If you come out now I won’t turn you into turtle soup!”
[poke]
“Why are you still hiding? Are you ugly? Are you disfigured, like Quasimodo? Are you the Turtle of Notre Dame in there? Huh?”
[poke, poke]
Hey! Come out right now or I’m going to smash you on these rocks! I mean it!”
[poke]
SNAP!

Apparently the turtle had had enough.

Have you ever smashed your finger in a car door? How about hitting it with a hammer, or intentionally put it into a vise? If you have, then you’ll understand the kind of pain that turtle inflicted upon my poor, unsuspecting finger. If none of those things have happened in your life yet, then go do them now or you just won’t understand the kind of immense pain I felt when that little bastard clamped down on my finger.

My mind actually shut down for a second or two.

I stood there frozen in time like some sort of statue for what seemed like hours. My body was ramrod straight and my mind was completely blank. My right hand’s index finger, which had been extended for another poke at my little prisoner, looked to me as if a turtle had been surgically affixed to it. The turtle hadn’t taken a tiny bit of flesh, either. Oh no, that would have been too merciful to its tormentor. It had my entire nail, down to the first knuckle, in its mouth. And it was angrily grinding its mouth together for maximum damage. I was in so much pain, and was so surprised, that I couldn’t even scream. I just made that “Ah!” sound over and over as I stared at my finger.

Then it looked at me and I swear to you, it grinned.

Suddenly I could move again, and my only thought was to get this fricking thing OFF of my finger before it swallowed me whole. I began pulling on the turtle, then shaking my hand wildly and finally doing some sort of aboriginal dance involving flapping arms, flailing hands and high-pitched whines and guttural screams of pain, but the little bastard wouldn’t let go no matter how much I begged for mercy.

Finally, in desperation, I put my hand into the stream.

He was gone in an instant. One moment I had a new, turtle-shaped finger and the next my finger was its usual shape and size. Looking at my hand in fear for the damage I was sure he had inflicted, I was surprised to find that my finger was completely unharmed. No broken bones, my nail wasn’t so much as scratched and the skin wasn’t even broken, let alone bloody as I expected. Shaking my head in disbelief at my good fortune, I decided to head back to my dad’s house to see what was on TV and leave the wildlife alone for another day. Since that day I have seen many turtles, and although I have pet them, prodded them, poked them and picked them up, there is one thing I haven’t done. And I suggest you never do it either.

Never, ever, mock a turtle.

Meeting notes from May 23, 1971

Satan: “OK you demonic slaves, listen up. Sales of children’s souls for candy are down which is bad, but kids lying and stealing to acquire candy is up. That means that overall we’re doing alright, but alright just isn’t good enough in this economy. If we don’t make our numbers next month I’m afraid I’ll have to let some of you go and turn you into fuel for the boilers.”

[general mumbles of anxious denial]

Satan: “Shut up. Now, R&D has just finished their latest study on children and deviant behavior and it turns out that Johnson here was on the right track with his Pop Rocks idea. Johnson’s Pop Rocks have been great for business, they’ve got a lot of sugar in them and kids just love the sound they make when they eat them and drink Coke at the same time. The only problem is that Pop Rocks just don’t have enough sugar in them to make them truly evil. You see, according to R&D, what we need to do is get more sugar into these kids so they’ll get a sugar rush, leading to a sugar high, and finally sugar withdrawal. This will then lead to deviant behavior and the subsequent sale of their soul to one of our reps to get out of trouble, or for nothing less than even more sugar! It’s brilliant in its simplicity. So, there must be some way to get more sugar into human children without increasing our costs and no one’s leaving this room until we figure it out.”

[crickets]

Satan: “Come on, demons! Doesn’t anyone have an idea?”

Johnson: “Uh, Your Unholiness?”

Satan: “Yes Johnson?”

Johnson: “Well, I was just thinking… If it’s sugar we need to give them, why don’t we do just that? You know, give them pure sugar?”

Satan: “I’m afraid I don’t follow you.”

Johnson: “Well, you see, I thought that maybe we could just take some sugar, give it a little drop of flavoring and package it in a way that kids will think is cool. We could even keep its price down to a dime or so, just so they won’t think twice about buying it with their spare change. And to keep costs down, we could put the sugar into paper wrappers that look like straws. Even better, we could use plastic straws and charge a little more! Hey, we’ve got all those surplus Hoola-Hoops from the 60s lying around, right? Well, we could always cut them in half and sell them as extra large, super sugar straws.”

Satan: “Johnson, you’re a genius! I love this idea. Just for that I think I’ll cancel your three o’clock Hot Poker In The Anus appointment for today.”

Johnson: “Oh, thank you sir! Thank you!”

Satan: “But wait, what are we going to call these sugar straws so the parents won’t object when their kids start eating them?”

Johnson: “Well sir, for the sake of irony, you could name it something cute like Pixie Stix. That way it doesn’t sound as disturbing to the parents as it would if you named it more truthfully. You know, like Edible Kiddy Cocaine or Psycho Sand.”

Satan: “BRILLIANT! Johnson, I’m taking you down off that crucifix and giving you two hours in the Pillow Room. Hell, you’ve done such a good job today I’m even going to throw in Cleopatra and Helen of Troy.”

[Johnson sheds tears of joy as he is lowered to the floor]

Johnson: “Oh, thank you sir! Thank you!”

End of meeting notes.