the demise

I write this out of guilt, shame and remorse. I purchased these two cute little turtles from the local petshop. Where by the way I collect points from all my purchases. I believe when I attain 600 thousand points I will get a free calender or something along that line. So my little guys - one is a Florida Cooter and the other is a Cumberland Slider. Red eared sliders are illegal to sell. I have one of those and his name is Al. He is in the big pond. So I thought Al might be lonely, hence the addition of these little guys. But I feared these were too little to put with Al in the outside pond. So they are in the tank inside till they grow. And I do want them growing. I feed them little itty bitty tadpoles from another outside pond. At first I felt a tad bad (pun) from sending these cute little tadpoles to their end but if left on their own for sure a stork would be having them for a sushi snack. So twice a day I scoop some up and feed them to Cooter and Cumbie. And every day these little cuties get bigger and bigger. And then there was the day I scooped up a very large tadpole and dropped him in the tank. Gulp, gone in a second. Sometimes I watch with a sick fascination as they eat their protein. One day I witnessed a knock down drag out fight over a tasty morsel. At that point I realized they could survive in the wild if need be. So this one morning I scooped up the breakfast tadpoles and dropped them in the tank for the hungry beasts. Oh no! There was a tadpole with both legs almost a frog. I guess he was technically a frog since his tail was gone. Feeeling evil about what I had been doing washed over me. So I knew I had to save this baby frog. I took the net and tried to scoop him out of the tank, save him from this horrible fate. Being the avid klutz I knocked him off the side of the tank and he fell into the water. Instantly Cooter snapped him up and gulped him down. I was mortified. So now I am faced with guilt and my futile actions of ineptness. So I weigh the options. Turtles getting big or tadpoles becoming frogs. It's a tough world out.