Take an annoying little brother, add an angry turtle…

When I was a kid, my younger step brother was always bugging me. It wasn’t that he wanted to hang around with his older brother, and his friends, he just REALLY wanted to bug me.

If we were riding bikes over jumps, he would run out and rip the board off the block just before we got to it.

If there was a snow storm, he would take off and steal my shoveling jobs, while I had to shovel our own driveway.

If the plan was to go catch tadpoles and catfish to feed the turtles me and my buddy Tim had caught, he would steal the bucket and make us chase him around the yard trying to catch him.

He was clever too…He would sprint at top speed, and just as you were about to catch him, he would veer off wildly in another direction. His balance was AMAZING. Once he started to tire he would get a good distance from you and rest right until the very last moment and sprint away again.

He could easily out run me and Tim for half an hour or more. And if we got too close, or he got too tired, he would just scoot up a tree. These days, those skills are earning him a nice living in Florida doing tree maintenance!

One morning Tim and I were headed for the woods to catch salamanders. We knew he was going to try and follow us, or do something else that would drive us crazy, so I devised what was the most evil plan I ever came up with as a way to deter him from bugging us.

We went up to the turtle habitat Tim and I had built in the back yard, and I selected a good sized painted turtle and took it down to the back porch to wait for my little brother to come out. All the while I teased the turtle. I touched him on the nose while he tried to hide in his shell. I would keep at him until he snapped his head out in an attempt to bite my finger, and then I would jerk my finger away.

After about 10 minutes or so of this the turtle was pretty riled. I hollered into my mother to tell her that we were going up to the woods, knowing that would get my little brother’s attention.

He came running out the back door and as typical in the summer he had no shirt on. As he came out the back door I thrust the angry turtle towards his naked back, and as I expected the turtle latched on.

What I DIDN’T expect was that the turtle had NO intention of letting go. My little brother ran across the yard screaming, and the turtle hung on, bouncing up and down with my brother’s every step.

After awhile the turtle let loose and my brother stopped running. On his back was the perfect outline of the turtle’s top and bottom “beak”. Not being a good sport he ran in and told my mother.

Needless to say, I did NOT go hunting for salamanders that day, my buddy Tim had to go home, and the turtle habitat was ordered to be removed, never to be rebuilt. Some people have no sense of humor when it comes to stuff like that.411

Doug Alley

About Doug Alley

I grew up in Bath, Maine in an upper lower class family with 3 step sisters, a step brother, and a little sister. After high school I spent 3 years serving in the USAF at Elmendorf AFB in Anchorage AK. I've competed in, and won, demolition derbies. I've competed in, and never won, stock car races. I am the 47-year-old father of an 11-year-old boy who is pretty sure he is smarter than I ever was. We live on a little less than an acre of land in a 1973 mobile home in Stetson with my wife Jen, some cats, a few chickens, and rabbits, and a couple of goats. I hunt, fish, camp out, dabble in photography, gardening, and I cook in variable degrees of near success.