Morla has become quite the fixture in our home, despite his relegation to a corner of the dining room and relative inactivity. He’s usually either in his pool or in his house, just hanging out. If you’re lucky, he’ll blink and move his head a bit.
The reason he’s become such a fixture is because he’s hilarious. Brian swears he looks perpetually grumpy no matter what he’s doing. I think he looks smugly superior. When you pick him up, he closes his shell and makes huffy noises as if he’s SO inconvenienced. Either that, or he waves his arms and legs around like he’s flying. Before we bought him a fancy log house, he would turn over the one I made him from a tissue box and then try to dig through the bottom – or what used to be the top before he upended it. I cut out the bottom for him so he could dig into his loamy bedding, but I guess he doesn’t care.
“What the hell is that noise?” Brian would ask, before investigating. “Oh…” he’d reply to himself with a chuckle.
Dots doesn’t know what to think, but has decided he needs constant surveillance. The other cats don’t care.
We thought that Dots would get tired of him, because he really DOESN’T do much. No sign of that yet. Every time she gets on the dining room table, she ends up over there staring as Morla wiggles his shell back and forth, adjusting under the light, blinks and raises his head, or plods towards his new house to dig under it for a nap. She stares if he’s not doing anything, though, too.
Her tail is a calm twitch, and she doesn’t make those chittering noises as if she wants to eat him. She hasn’t attempted to get into his aquarium, either. She just stares, poised and intent, as he does his turtle thing. It’s like cat TV.
It’s like human TV for us too – as good as watching an aquarium with all the fish swimming by. You know, only less exciting. Except for the constant glee that he seems to eminate.
I really thought I wouldn’t care at all about a turtle I can’t even touch (they can carry salmonella, so I’m a no with the baby on the way). But he’s been a pretty good addition to what is slowly becoming a menagerie. I’m glad Brian convinced me to keep him.
Morla is the name of the tortoise in Neverending Story if you were interested. Bookish and nerdy at the same time – just what this household requires.
Casey E. Hamilton 