"So God made the wildlife of the earth according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and creatures that crawl on the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good."
~Genesis 1:25~
Since it's the Lord's day, I've decided to share a truly miraculous event which I was privy to observe a couple of weeks ago.
I had decided to run an errand (to Target, as a metter of fact--where else?!), and it was rush hour (around 5 pm). I turned onto a 5-lane road, which was not a highway but was very busy at that time of day. All of a sudden, I saw something very small on the road in front of me, and it appeared to be moving. It looked an awful lot like a crab walking sideways into my lane (the second lane from my right). Perhaps the reason why I thought I saw a sand crab in the middle of the road in the middle of the suburbs in a land-locked city was due to the fact that the night before I had watched a show on the Food Network during which crabs were cooked.
In any case, right as I moved over/past the object, I realized it was a turtle (about 6" long), and it all happened so fast that I swerved as best I could to avoid running him (or her) over--in fact, for convenience, from here on out, I'll refer to the hero (or heroine) of my story as "Myrtle." I looked in my rearview mirror after I had passed by/over the little booger, I mean Myrtle, expecting the worst; however, what I saw was her quickly pull herself into her shell, being startled at coming so close to...well, you know.
I really wanted to stop and help poor Myrtle, and knew I would need to act fast, as the cars were moving at a rush-hour pace, and she had only made it across 1.5 out of 5 lanes. I didn't really think there was a safe place for me to pull over and try to help her without getting squashed myself, but I decided to turn around and go back to make sure. It's actually very dangerous to get out of your car roadside. In fact, I've heard that sometimes people are standing by the side of the road, not because they're trying to rescue a roving reptile, but because their car has broken down or they've gotten in an accident; tragically, sometimes they end up being hit by an oncoming car. That is why it's recommended that you stay in your car until help comes if you're ever stuck by the side of the road for any reason. So pulling over is usually not a wise thing to do, much less to venture out into the street inself.
ANYWAY, I got turned around and started back in the opposite direction. Before you know it I saw something up ahead--it was Myrtle the turtle!! She had made it the rest of the way across the 2nd lane, all the way across the 3rd lane (which was a turn lane), and was now in my lane (the 4th one from my left). Goodness, at that point I realized I had put her in more danger by turning around to try and help her, as I'm not very good at swerving to avoid things, and I was going to have to swerve to avoid her for the second time. For example, if you must know, sometimes when I swerve to avoid potholes, I end up going right across the top of them, when I might have only hit the edge if I hadn't tried to do anything at all--go figure--and don't tell the DMV.
Right before I got to her, the car in front of me quickly changed lanes (going into the last lane on our right) to avoid her, and the next car ahead of me went over her so that their wheels were on either side of her, safely clearing her. Then it was my turn...
Yes, I managed to swerve and avoid her, which is miraculous enough in itself, though I definitely didn't attept going over the top of her as the other car had done. I couldn't go into the lane on the right because the coast wasn't clear. Next, I turned right into an apartment comlex because I thought there might be a safe place for me to step out into that side of the street and rescue her. I turned around and pulled my car up to the exit of the complex and looked down the street to my left; I saw that I wasn't super-close to Myrtle and would have to park the car and then walk quite a ways down the side of the road in order to get to her.
Right at that exact moment, a tall, lanky young man came into the street from the opposite side, strode quickly across into the 5th lane (which our remarkable, redoubtable reptile had made it into), scooped her up, and set her in the grass! As I made my way towards Target once again, I looked to my right to see if I could figure out from whence Myrtle's knight in shining armor had come, and it appeared there was a walking trail which led down to the street.
I can't help but reflect upon what a blessed and fortunate little turtle is Myrtle; if she only knew how close she had come to being...well, you know.
So to answer the question I posed in this post's title, which isn't a rhetorical one after all...
Why did the turtle cross the road?
Well, to get to the other side, of course!
~ ~ ~
No comments:
Post a Comment