Whether you happen to be a box turtle or a being who takes care of a box turtle, there is one thing you can count on as you go along together: a steep learning curve.
Every day you will learn something new…whether you want to or are in the mood to or not.
For example, let’s say you are a box turtle. And then one day you wake up and your normally ivory-white neck skin (a particularly manly and masculine neck skin color, as everyone knows) has turned…..PINK.
This is not ideal for a variety of reasons, some obvious and some not so obvious.
The first reason is because you know your anxious large shell-less assistant is nearly guaranteed to panic when she sees this.
The second reason is because you know exactly what she is going to do when she panics. She will load you into your awful little “turtle carrier” and take you straightaway to the large scary beings in the white lab coats.
The third (and most awful) reason is that once you get there, everyone will take one look at your pink neck skin and assume you are a lady box turtle!
And the fourth reason? You won’t even get any news – good or not so good – about what is causing the pink-ness until later, after the white-coated beings have done all their staring and swabbing and specimen-ing!
P.S. The large shell-less being here…..happily in this particular case, the mystery of the pink neck skin resolved gradually on its own – no need for meds or follow-up vet visits. We still don’t know exactly what caused it, although Bruce’s vet suspects a minor rash/infection of the sort normally categorized under “box turtles will be box turtles”….and sometimes expensive ones at that.
P.P.S. It also feels worth mentioning that neck skin color is not typically a good way to tell the boy box turtles from the girl box turtles. Chalk that one up to “blogger’s license for dramatic effect.” 😉
