A story about some Tortoises that died by Alexander Cromer

Truth of the matter is, the tortoises next door keep trying to go outside of their home in the winter to go to the beach. I sometimes go out and tell them that the beach will take them more than a few hours to get to (driving, but it isn’t like they can drive anyway) and besides, by the time they make it out to their car (if they had one) they would be frozen; “after all,” I would say, “you aren’t a warm-blood.”

They would listen to me, for the time, and womble back into their hot abode (sweltering 80 fucking degrees), but a few days later they would come back out again, with their pre-mature ejaculate of sunglasses and sun-tanning lotion and blankets and coolers full of capri-sun (they don’t even have any lips!).

I would have to go outside into the cold and tell them again; “after all, you aren’t a warm-blood.”

After myriad repeated offense I guess they decided to get a little wise, sneak out in the dead of night.

“He won’t see us and we can go to the beach finally, maybe,

just have to be real quiet and move slowly” (because tortoises make a lot of noise and go fast, i guess),

So, on one brisk January evening, they crept out their house at 12 a.m. with their sunglasses and sun-tanning lotion and blankets and coolers full of beer (you can’t sip without fucking lips), waddling out of their front door, creeping along slowly, one claw in front of the other in front of the other to their non-existent car.

When I woke up that morning I discovered them as I was retrieving my morning paper.

Two little tortoises frozen to death a few meters away from their front door. They had sunglasses on their round faces and little dots of white sun-tanning lotion on their little beaks and beach towels slung over their little shells and a cooler full of beer that they desperately had tried to move from their doorway with their little claws.

I sighed and grabbed the freshly delivered newspaper from their driveway.
I’ll call pest control later.