I have a turtle, and as you can guess by the title, his name is Jerry. I named him Jerry after the hit show Tom & Jerry, you know the one with the cat and mouse? Well Tom, the cat, is always trying to catch the mouse, Jerry but he can never quite seem to do it. From the moment I picked up Jerry from the local pet store, I knew that he was the one for me, but I have to say he looked awfully timid in his tank. He wasn't close to the other turtles at all and he just seemed to sit there all on his own. I guess you could say that I picked him because I felt bad for him. Either way, when I got him in my carry case, I knew that we had a connection, even though that may sound silly because at the end of the day, he is just a turtle. So I picked up a pamphlet from the pet store and that detailed all the things that I needed in order to take care of him. I needed a secure fitting tank, plenty of fruit and vegetables and some water for him to swim in. I immediately took my wage and I blew it all on my little buddy. I bought him plenty of strawberry treats, a submergible pond for the tank and even some cool lighting so he could feel completely at home the second I put him in there. I even invested in some real plants as well, so I knew that his original environment was replicated as much as possible.
What disappointed me however is that as soon as I got him in the tank, he just sat there! I mean, come on Jerry, what is going on here! So I played with him a little, tried to feed him some of his strawberry treats and no matter what I did, it just wasn't working. After a couple of weeks, I began to worry even more, and after doing a search on the internet, he didn't look happy at all. Eventually, I took him back to the shop because I thought I must be doing something wrong. I mean, I had a total bond with this turtle and he just wasn't happy. The pet shop guy advised me that a few days before I picked up Jerry, he was separated from another turtle in his tank, so maybe the two had grown to be friends and he was having a hard time adjusting.
I asked to see the other turtle and he looked to be the same size as Jerry. I picked him up and I brought him home, even though I now had one more turtle than I originally bargained for!
As soon as I put him in the tank, you could literally see Jerry's face light up. He looked so happy and I could just tell that he was trying to tell me thank you. I thought I'd get them out of the tank for a bit and I set up a little obstacle course for them in something I like to call the play tank. It is a huge rectangular tank that has climbing steps and all sorts of fun stuff. I thought I'd try them with a different treat as well, so I put some raspberries in there so they could have something when they reach the finish line. Now I know that turtles are slow, but I'm not kidding, as soon as I put Jerry in there with his friend, he looked to be running. He was having so much fun and the other turtle just couldn't keep up with him. I couldn't believe how fast he was, maybe he just missed his playmate or maybe he just wanted to get his hands on the big juicy raspberry at the top of the shelf, either way, it was unbelievable.
After a couple of more sessions, I decided to name the other turtle Tom; after all, he could never catch up to Jerry no matter how hard he tried! So let's skip ahead in the story to the point where I knew that Jerry would go on to be the world's fastest turtle. I entered him in a competition with a couple of other people that came from all around the area and we put our turtles on the starting line. I put jerry down and I had a big juicy raspberry waiting for him. We've done this training a couple of hundred times now at least so I knew he was ready. The piston went off and off they went! Jerry was closing up behind one of the turtles in front and he was so close to passing him. I'm not joking, it was so tense. Just when I thought it was all over, the other turtle reared off to the side but Jerry carried on going. He came right into my hands and I gave him two raspberries, you know why? Because he came FIRST.
That's right; the turtle that barely moved is now the fastest turtle in the world