How Turtles Have Sex

To tell a male turtle from a female, look at the shell of the stomach. The stomach plate of the female is flat; that of a male turtle, when he is laid on his back, curves inward like a cup.

God has designed turtles thus so that when they mate, they nest together like spoons with the outward curve of her back shell fitting into the concave curve of his belly shell, thus bringing their organs into contact. Seeing such things be so, who can doubt the majesty of God, Creator of all, who maketh even turtles fit together in His scheme of things?

The above quote comes from a historical fiction novel set in the 1660s.

What brought it to my mind was that when my daughter arrived from Gainesville Saturday for her birthday party, she brought a pair of huge turtles, her long-time pets, to leave at our house till I can make arrangements to deliver them to a new home.

The working title of my historical novel was “The Cook’s Book”.

The place I’m supposed to deliver the turtles to is a restaurant.

But this arrangement does not bode ill for Patricia’s pet turtles; the restaurant owner also raises turtles and offered to place them in her turtle corral.

Now, while the sexual practices of turtles may indicate an intelligent design in the universe, our party certainly does not.

Quite the contrary.

This party just happened with no one person planning or coordinating the event. Our kids, who initiated the party, just put out a general word, “Everybody bring something or another”.

Each person brought, or didn’t bring, whatever food struck their fancy. That usually meant cake or cookies or pies or ice cream.

Nobody though to bring soda at first, so we had to scrounge for drinks.

And for a time there it looked as though the main dishes for supper would be trail mix, deviled eggs, and celery sticks filled with cream cheese.

I’m not sure Martha Stewart would feel at home at our house.

Then late arrivals poured in with fried chicken and humus and veggies and salads and the table groaned with goodies of every sort and description. A lavish feast was spread with no evidence of intelligent design at all.

Ginny & I had planned to host this thing outside but afternoon rains squelched that idea and the crowd packed our tiny living room. Chairs were at a premium and smokers out of courtesy huddled under an awning out back.

Laughter shook the house.

Except of course when I told my joke about Rene Decarte which elicited a universal groan.

Lively conversation abounded about books, and movies, and sick cats, and somebody being dragged down the stairs by her hair by her sister, and archaeology, and music, and philosophy, and physics, and cars, and flight reservations, and Godzilla, and the library’s reading to dogs program, and computers, and the time Donald sold his bedroom to his sister, and avian flu, and, of course -- turtles.

So, his concave shell fits over her convex shell nesting together when they have sex. Humm…This arrangement may not be conclusive proof of God’s intelligent design, but the turtles find it satisfactory.