Ode to Harriet: A lover, a survivor and a turtle

I recently found a new love interest. Her name is Harriet. She’s 330 pounds and her skin is… I recently found a new love interest. Her name is Harriet. She’s 330 pounds and her skin is all scaly, but I think she’s beautiful. She wears the same thing every day and lives halfway across the world in Australia. She’s older than me, by a mere 156 years, but I refuse to let a number come between us. What we have is so pure and romantic, I don’t even care that she sits around all day and doesn’t have a job. Oh, and by the way, she’s a reptile.

Harriet the tortoise is turning 175 this year, and we should all be celebrating with her. She’s had a pretty ridiculous life. She’s lived through two world wars, 37 United States presidents and 39 Super Bowls. She’s seen seemingly invincible empires and corporations rise up and crumble to the ground. She was even friends with famous evolutionist Charles Darwin. That’s the kind of maturity I’m looking for in a girl.

Believe it or not, I’d be her first. Despite her surplus of life experience, she has never been able to find that special someone. In fact, for the first few decades after being found by Darwin, she was referred to by the name Harry, because she was too heavy for anyone in a white lab coat and glasses to flip her over and check out her machinery. Can you imagine going through life without knowing your gender? Would you play with dolls or action figures? Would you wear pink or blue? Would you watch SportsCenter or Laguna Beach?

Let’s get back to the point – Harriet was born in 1830. That was a really, really, really long time ago. She’s older than most professors at Pitt. She was born the same year as Emily Dickenson, Queen Isabella II, The Republic of Ecuador and Julius Caesar – the British cricket player, not the Roman emperor. That year, she broke through her protective shell, a beacon of warmth and safety, into a dark and scary world without telephones, iPods, Boy Scouts or West Virginia. When people ask her if things have gotten better or worse, she has no answer.

Some call her lazy. Some say she’s too introverted. Some go as far as to tell me that animals do not have the mental capacity to experience the love and companionship that go along with a serious relationship. Those people have obviously never seen “Finding Nemo”, “Mr. Ed” or “Lady and the Tramp.” I pity them and their closed minds.

I say we’re a perfect match. I like lying around all day; she’s mastered the art. I don’t like wild badgers; they’re one of her main natural predators. I like going to the zoo; she lives in one. I like listening to Elvis; she’s old enough to have met him. I’m a warm-blooded mammal, she-well, nothing’s perfect. I’m sure you and your significant other don’t have everything in common, so back off.

I can picture our first date. She polishes up her shell just the way I like it. Our romantic stroll along the beach takes five hours and she’s almost taken away by the tide three times. She uses her senior citizen discount to buy our movie tickets. Then we go out for a candlelight dinner of wild cabbage and her neighbor’s eggs. It’s just magical.

Ok, I’m sorry, but this is getting a little too weird. No, I am not in love with a tortoise and I do not support bestiality in any way. You do have to admit, however, that it’s pretty amazing that there is a living, breathing creature that has lived for such a long time. 175 years – coincidentally, that’s the same age at which the biblical Abraham died. But the people taking care of her report that there is no evident reason why she shouldn’t at least live past 200. Wow. That day she better be in New York with the weatherman from the Today Show, taunting all the young whippersnappers half her age.

She never learned karate from a sewer rat and probably wouldn’t be of very much help fighting crime. She doesn’t even eat a slice of pizza in two bites. Only turtles do that. Get your animals straight. She just sits around, minding her own business, soaking in life. She never noticed when kids used to draw graffiti on her back. I could see her with a glass of unsweetened iced tea and a head full of curlers, knitting a pair of gloves nobody will ever wear. That is, I would be able to see that if she had hair and a pair of opposable thumbs.

I think that we could learn a lot from her, and other seniors for that matter – life lessons from somebody who has conquered time. She could give us the secret to the psychological fountain of youth. I bet she’d say, “Calm down. Take it slow. Make sure you always leave enough time to enjoy life and experience as much as you can. Most importantly, you are only as old as you think you are. Now please go away, I want to get some sleep.”

E-mail Sam at Seg23@pitt.edu if you know anybody else who is 175 years old. I bet you don’t.