Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of roadkill on the streets. I don’t know if it’s because it’s springtime and I never noticed it before or if there really has been a surge in careless wildlife, but every day when I go out there seems to be a new dead body on the streets. Just today Dave’s father told me that one of the neighborhood goslings was killed in a hit and run.

So I’m driving Ben home from his grandparents today, when I see something on my side of the street. Is it another roadkill victim? A rag? A rock? Then it moved! As I came closer, I realized what it was. It was a turtle! I’d only seen a turtle in the wild once, and that was in Florida. I didn’t even know that Illinois had native turtles until I looked it up in the internet. I swerved around the turtle, and noticed that it was going pretty slow. (yeah, I know, DUH, it’s a turtle). I decided to come back around and play crossing guard for the turtle. I put on my hazards and stopped in front of the turtle, and waited for it to pass, forcing other cars to pass me on the non-turtle side. I then repeated the action when the turtle got into the other lane.

Once the turtle made it safely to the parking lot across the street, I brought Ben out of the car to meet him. Ben LOVES turtles. So we stood in the parking lot for about five minutes as Ben talked to the turtle and finally I had to drag Ben away, because the turtle was too afraid to move while we were standing there. I carefully drove around him and Ben waved goodbye to his new friend.

Tags: Stories //