My roommate was flipping through the channels on TV, and for a brief moment, a turtle flickered across our screen. I grinned slightly as I thought back to the weekend before I came back to school.
My close friend from high school had invited me up to her cabin for the weekend, saying that a bunch of family friends were going to be there, and it was going to be one big party. Her parents had invited one friend up, Sarah invited me, and her older brother, freshly graduated from college, had five friends up with him.
I was anticipating a weekend of drunken stupidity with those kinds of numbers.
What I did not anticipate, however, was my morals being put so firmly to the test. (Not like that.)
One morning, they all decided that we were going to go floating down the river. This sounded leisurely and fun, and I was amused to see that all the boys had fashioned spears out of sticks they found in the woods. They planned to use them to spear fish, which I knew would never be fruitful. After about ten minutes on the river, barely steering our pair of lashed-together row boats, the boys realized this too. They had, unfortunately, also brought landing nets, and logs on the banks of the river were perfect sunning spots for multitudes of painted turtles.
Now the first few attempts failed miserably, which wasn't a huge surprise, judging by the amount of empty Old Milwaukee cans that lined the bottom of either boat (I have never seen so much alcohol consumed in so short a time by so few people). But then they started actually catching the turtles, the poor, drowsy things. They caught at least three and were holding them in the boat's live-well when one of them mentioned seeing an episode of Survivor Man where the host killed and ate a turtle. I was horrified because I knew these boys were just drunk enough to get enthusiastic about the idea. Then one of them countered, "Hey man, if you kill it and cook it, I will eat it."
That was the point of no return. A line had been drawn in the sand and the challenge had to be met. No turtles were safe.
My seat on the boat was the panel that flipped up to reveal the live-well. I could hear the turtles clawing madly at the metal interior, and my heart continued to sink. This was funny to the boys, but to me it was animal cruelty. Because my perch was on top of the well, it was my duty to remove the captive turtles from the landing nets and place them inside. The tank was starting to get crowded, and at one point, with a turtle in either hand, I hesitated. While I was considering the repercussions of tossing them overboard to safety, one of the boys noticed my hesitancy. "What are you doing, Adrienne?"
"SHE'S GONNA LET THEM GO!" Shouted one, and soon I was surrounded by the bellowing of half a dozen males who were about twenty sheets to the wind. Fearing drunken mutiny, I put all of the turtles in captivity, whispering apologies to all of them.
I was actually taken quite aback when my friend joined the planning about how best to kill and cook the turtles. I felt personally attacked when she told me to lighten up, they were just turtles.
"Turtles that would haunt me forever if I let them die." I thought to myself.
For the rest of the trip I made unnecessary noise and splashed excessively to warn turtles of our coming, but eventually I resigned myself to passive onlooker, guilt crushing my ability to have any sort of fun. All in all, they caught seven turtles, and brought them all back to the cabin.
The boys sat around for awhile talking about where they would cook them, on what, how to kill them, with what knife. I couldn't stand the conversation and agitation bubbled up in my belly. I got up without saying anything and went outside to be by myself.
The row boat, still containing the captive turtles, was right in front of me. It was now or never.
What do I really care about? The opinion of some drunk frat boys who I don't really get along with anyway, or coming to the rescue of animals that really need me?
I took the turtles by twos to a nice reedy section of the shore and pushed them into the lake, apologizing out loud to all of them for the bad day and the change of residence.
I got crap for the rest of the night, and earned myself the nickname Peta. I shrugged and smiled, happy to be a kill-joy instead of a kill-turtle.
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