Home is where you hide your hatchlings

One can learn a lot about a chap via perusal of his sub-davenport floorspace. Such an area forms a physical manifestation of persona and priority. Give me a day under a couch and I'll give you a psych evaluation Jung would be proud of, a behavioral vignette Skinner would applaud.

So. Want the dirt on Derick William Dalton?

Exhibit A: Dirt.
Grains too large for clay or loam. Very gritty, nearly 0.5 mm in diameter. Pigmentation indicates decomposing granite, about a six on Moh's scale of mineral hardness. Conclusion? Classic hoarding behaviors. And failure to remove shoes upon entering the house.

Exhibit B: Dust Bunnies.
Not only are these rapidly reproducing under here, they each have a terrible infestation of mites. Mangy dust bunnies is a nice touch. But the real issue is their attitude.
“Hi Dust Bunny. I think I can get you some flea powder for those pests.”
“Pests? Those are my children.”
“I meant the dust mites. That's gotta itch.”
“Mites? What are you insinuating? That I tolerate or contribute to parasitism?”
“I see them crawling through-”
“Get your eyes checked, turtle.”
Denali ain't just a park in a Alaska. Wait, that came out wrong...

Exhibit C: Junk mail.
To my trained observation, there is a positive correlation between distance from the front of the couch and the postmark date. DWD is a stuff-and-forget type. Procrastinator. Abstract random. Look, a wrapper of a – um, never mind. Make that abstract randy.

Exhibit D: Pet.
Who leaves their pet turtle under the couch? That's not the place for a beloved member of the family.
Unless I've been demoted. See? Withholding affection.

Uh oh. Here he comes to put me in the bath again. Save. Publish. Logout. Reopen rough draft he was pretending to work on to cover up video games. Whew.

My Impersonation of Steve McQueen, Sans Motorcycle

Just like my worm the other day, I almost escaped once. Derick William Dalton turned me loose in the back yard for some exercise. I like to think he had concerns with my cardiovascular health, because if I find out he wants me to lose weight, I'm going to bite him.

The grass was cool, the sun was warm, and the breeze smelled better than the stale air of my terrarium. At first I was enjoying it. Then I started feeling a little exposed but quickly found the solution. The hillside. Cool dry dirt to dig and sagebrush under which to hide. When I'm not trying to catch anything in my mouth, I'm surprisingly quick. I waited until DWD was distracted by one of his kids and I was gone. I crawled under a tumbleweed, dug down, and flipped some of the dirt over me.

DWD spent hours looking for me. Almost stepped on me twice. His wife and the neighbors were out looking for a while, too. The sun went down, all got quiet and dark, and I didn't have to stay up until midnight listening to laser guns and starship explosions from the television. I enjoyed the peaceful sleep for several hours, but then I woke to notice bits of frost forming on the grass around me. And I smelled dog. Well, smelled, and the scar on the back of my shell was tingling due to the presence of some Voldermutt. No more sleep after that.

Obviously, the sunrise the next morning was my favorite of recent memory. That's how DWD found me, out in the open trying to thaw out, my legs and head stretched out to catch as much sun as I could. Not very ladylike, but I wasn't trying to impress anyone.

So, my terrarium doesn't seem so confining anymore. Just wish I had a baseball.