The Garden Club

Thursday, July 27, 2006

Duba vs The Demented Mangled Troll Part 1

You remember Duba... the man, the myth, the legend. He is the only one willing to challenge Gravi T and the other inanimate objects. The holder of the New Jersey record for the shortest discus throw and master of carnival rides. He would have helped me battle the Red Barron if he wasn't retardedly preoccupied. He was robbed of the Oscar for his performance of "Portrait of a Serial Killer" and beat his arch rival Jim Duda in a battle to the death, all in one day. He participated in the Greatest Eating Contest of the New Millennium in the year 2000 in which he defeated the infamous Foxy from Delaware (don't trust anyone from Delaware...they are all evil).

Duba wasn't always so busy solving the world's plain boredom problem. In fact he used to spend most of his time searching for the troll who lives under that one lane bridge in Cinnaminson. The bridge, for some unknown reason, is only wide enough to allow one car to pass at a time. This, in conjunction with the fact that even the tiniest bit of rain causes the road around the bridge to flood, causes a traffic jam anytime two cars want to pass at the same time. Both sides of the bridge have yield signs making both cars stop and stare at the other and once the other side starts going you have to sit there until the cars stop coming. This may be several minutes due to the large volume of cars from Rte 73.

I was sitting in one of these traffic jams one day patiently awaiting my turn to cross the bridge. Like I always do around there, I was scanning the top of the lake for box turtles. I like to count how many turtles I can see. I like turtles. I always wished I would see several turtles stacked on top of each other like a Dr. Seuse story. As I got closer to the bridge I noticed something strange...a whole group of turtles sitting together on the dry land that leads down to the lake. I know enough about reptiles to know that turtles are not pack animals, despite the obvious observation that several turtles many sun bathe on the same log or large rock. This sparked my interest, but just as I was getting close enough to take a better look it became my turn to cross the bridge and head over to Rte 73. I just couldn't understand why an entire group of box turtles would be sitting together about 10 feet from the water. It made no sense.

That night I went back to examine the situation. I had to know for my own piece of mind. I was 99% expecting to find nothing, but I still hoped to find something. There was no way those turtles would still be there sitting on the side of that lake. I parked my car by that little vegetable stand next to Memorial Park and started to walk over to the lake determined to solve this mystery.

Being careful not to be hit by any cars crossing the one lane bridge, I hustled down the road but could not see anything. It was starting to get dark and the lightening bugs where beginning to come out. The early dusk surrounded me and caused an erie feeling in my bones. Maybe it was the light mist that rolled up from the lake, or maybe it was just me being a wuss, but I was slightly frightened. I pushed on, over the bridge and down the embankment to where the turtles certainly would not be. My eyes grew accustom to the increasing darkness, allowing me to see that the turtles were still there. They were all sitting in a pile and right away I knew something was up. I increased my speed to a slow jog despite being absolutely freaked out. Much to my dislike I found about 20 empty turtle shells randomly piled. There were more in the weeds lining the lake. The shells were all busted up at one end (I could not tell if it was the head side or the tail side). It looked like something had eaten all these turtles, sucked them right out of their shells like I would eat an oyster. I had no idea what could do this. I thought, "are there wolfs in Cinnaminson or can raccoons eat this many turtles?" I could think of only one man who may know, only one environmental scientist who would have the insight into predatory creatures in New Jersey, only one person to care about stupid turtles...





DUBA

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