Shell shocked

When I was having childhood flashbacks while I should have been driving the other morning, I found myself trying to see if I could pinpoint my earliest memory. I'm not sure this is it, but I will go out on a limb and say it's the most random one (yes, more random than hoping to invent a tiny seat belt for produce).

I was on my way in from playing out in the front yard and as I skipped my way through the garage, tra-la-la, something forced me to stop dead in my tracks. I screamed for my mom, unable to take another step, because there, on the step leading into the house was a turtle. A turtle. And in case you were wondering, our family did not have a pet turtle. And, we lived in the suburbs of Denver. A turtle. Oh, and we didn't live by water. A turtle. In my garage. On a step.

I was four or five, and as has been proven in the past, I believed what adults told me. If an adult told me that my hair came from the milkman, I believed them, or at least made up a story that would help me make sense of this information (the information that MUST be true because an adult told it to me). So I'm screaming, because, uh, hello? TURTLE! And my mom comes out and saves me. I'm not sure what happened to the turtle, but more importantly, I'm not sure how the turtle happened.

I do remember the explanation my mom gave for why a turtle would be in our garage: it was a field turtle. True our backyard was adjacent to a field, and some developers had just begun to turn the field into a street lined with cookie-cutter houses, which obviously was disrupting this poor little turtle's natural habitat. And I guess that could maybe make sense, but that means the turtle marched his little turtle self all the way around to the front of the house, into the garage, and then well, there is tiny issue of climbing the step. But, I guess to a four-year-old, it makes sense. I mean, I also thought it made sense that the kids on Sesame Street lived inside my TV. And yes, I could tell you how to get, how to get to Sesame Street (all you had to do was have your mom throw you through the screen, and ta-da!, you're there).

Admittedly, it's been almost 30 years since I had my run in with the field turtle and I've never questioned the logic of that argument until now. But when you think about it, really? Field turtle? And, as I'm wont to do, I searched the Internets for evidence. They really do exist, and apparently there is one terrestrial turtle native to Colorado, the ornate box turtle. If that were a Wikipedia site I would probably add some content to let the readers know that they might spot the turtle in garages on West 71st Place. Oh, and also, they can climb stairs.