tarheel

when you grow up on the east coast, you learn a lot of what some might consider to be worthless crap. like "don't fly a kite near powerlines" - a warning that played between every afternoon episode of Full House and made us fear being electrified by a kite. every school year some weirdos would bring in a snapping turtle that had been run over. the turtle would have a bunch of screws and wires in its shell, keeping it alive, i guess. and we'd get to pet it. that's right. they had it in a homemade wooden stock to prevent it from reaching back its long neck to snap us and they'd expertly explain how if that stock wasn't preventing it, the turtle would promptly turn and bite off my hand. and even though i was still sucking my thumb at that age, i remember thinking, "this is ridiculous."