Texaco the Laughing Turtle

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Originally Posted by Kevy Baby

Somebody tried to outbid me, but I am determined to save that turtle from his horrible captors.

I'm insulted. How dare you!

Actually Texaco has it quite good. Quite, indeed.

- I clean his bowl twice a week.
- He has all his food swatted into his mouth.
- He is kept at my job so he always has somebody at which to stare.

And I have made progress as well with him/her.
Texaco doesn't shrink into her shell like he used to when I picked her up.
Now he/she just looks at me. In the old days when I sat
him down on the table she would run to anyplace I was not.
Now he comes right to me and once he even lifted his
little paw and scratched my arm to signal that he/she was
ready for his/her bowl.

And I've noticed that Texaco has even picked up a few words, such as "Hello", "Bye" and "Anthropomorphistic". Few people realise that turtles are natural born parrots, just as parrots are also natural born parrots. Though, I am not stupid, I understand this ability in turtles is not intelligence, more than it is the rote memorisation of sounds.

OK, that last part was a lie. Turtles can not actually speak, and I am not sure if they can even recognise people from day to day. But Texaco isn't afraid of me anymore and that is something, I suppose.