Last week, I met a turtle named Misty.
I was walking my dog in the park near our house, when I saw a man and two kids hunched down by a tree. As we got closer, I saw what they were looking at: a turtle, slowly weaving its way through the short grass.
“Is it lost?” I called from the sidewalk.
“Oh no,” the man said. “She’s ours!”
Then he picked the turtle up, holding her so that her belly rested in his palm. Her head poked out of her shell and she looked right at me, as the man explained that her name is Misty, she’s twenty years old, and she comes with him every day to pick up his kids from school.
“She’s super intuitive,” he said. “She’ll scratch your leg when she wants something.”
Meeting Misty was magical in itself, but it was also an incredible coincidence, because I was in the midst of re-reading a book with a sharply opinionated, dry humored narrator… who also happens to be a domesticated tortoise.
I know that turtles and tortoises aren't the same (as both narrators of the book I’m about to recommend would say: "a turtle is to a tortoise what a mermaid is to me") but I'm still taking this as a sign from the universe that today is the day to introduce you to Come, Thou Tortoise.
- Sam
June 24, 2025
