One Last Item of Great Importance

A Fitting End

In one of my first year law school classes, we learned a legal concept called in rem jurisdiction. I still have no idea what that means, but I do know that it has something to do with a lawsuit involving specific pieces of property. The example from the civil procedure casebook involved turtles as the named party in the lawsuit.

Out of total coincidence, we happened to be studying that case on the day before Thanksgiving. Jenkins, my pet turtle, was my only roommate that year, so I had to take him with me when I went home for the holiday. I was leaving straight from school and couldn't leave him in my car, so I gingerly placed Jenkins in his blue plastic travel container and carried him around in my backpack.

When the time came to discuss the in rem turtle case, I nudged the guy next to me and opened my backpack to reveal little Jenk, swimming around in his vented container. Shocked, the guy nearly fell out of his chair as he realized what he was looking at.

I love to tell the story of my little object lesson.

Mr. Jenkins died today.
Jenkins was my first real pet (he added the 'Mr.' when he turned five). He was eight years old this month.

I bought him at a mall pet shop in Ft. Myers in 2001. He was about the size of a quarter when I brought him home and I'm pretty sure that was a violation of several state and federal FDA laws.

But he was a good turtle - a red-eared slider who liked basking in the sun and eating turtle food pellets. And that's about all he did. Turtles aren't very exciting pets.

His longevity should probably be attributed to his heartiness as a turtle rather than my turtle-owning skills. Truth be told, I was a pretty rotten reptile keeper. I changed his water less than I should have and wasn't very vigilant about his diet.

I would say that I loved Mr. Jenkins, but that wouldn't be entirely true. I loved the idea of Mr. Jenkins. I loved that there was a living testament to all the places I'd lived and things I'd experienced - even before my wife came along. He was my last connection to all those lousy dorms and basement bedrooms and Detroit slums. He was there when we had to live with my folks for six months when we moved back to Indy and he held a place in the dogs' room next to their crates. In fact, he outlived two of those dogs.

In his quiet turtle way, he kept me company throughout my twenties.

But now I'm almost thirty. And I don't think a 30-year old should have a pet turtle. At twenty, it felt good to be responsible for another living thing. Jenkins gave me a sense of caring for something other than myself.

But I've grown up.

Now I have much greater responsibilities than just tending to a reptile. Being a good son, a good husband, a good brother. All those things weren't as important to me eight years ago as they are now. Jenkins bore witness to that. Even as I outgrew him and stopped taking as good of care for him as I should have.

And so it is with this blog. I think I've kinda outgrown it and stopped taking as good of care it as I should have.

So I buried Jenkins today. For the last time, I placed him in his blue vented travel container - the same one he rode in for that law school class all those years ago. I buried him and placed his sun-basking rocks on top. And just so he wouldn't be forgotten, a glass paperweight in the shape a turtle.

I think everyone should have a Mr. Jenkins at some point in their life - if only for a short while - just something to look back on with fondness in remembrance of memories past.

And with Jenkins' passing, so too will this blog be put to rest. On to bigger and better things, I suppose. Maybe I'll start a novel. Or maybe I'll finish that novel I've been putting off. In any case, I think it's time for something new.

Anything that's not Twitter.

But I do hope that some of you have enjoyed reading these stories. Know that I greatly appreciate your feedback and kind words. It would be great if The Tortfeezor, like Mr. Jenkins, will be something to look back on with fondness in remembrance of memories past.

Thank you.

There's a Opossum at the End of this Blog

There's a opossum at the end of this blog.

You have been warned.

Whatever you do, do NOT scroll to the bottom of this blog.

Are you still reading? Why, oh why, are you still scrolling?

Turn off your computer monitor. Run away. Or at least hit ctrl-alt-del.

Because there's a opossum at the end of this blog. It is hideous.

It's an ugly, long-tailed opossum with a wiggling pink nose and white matted fur.

It currently lives in my garage, but it has also found it's way to the end of this blog.

Between the lawnmower and the recycling bin; right beside the cabinet where I keep the paint - there's a oppossum.

Staring out from a wire mesh cage with its beady eyes, listening with it's pointy ears, and sniffing with it's disgusting snout, my garage has become it's home.

And it's also at the end of this blog.

It's not sure whether I'll pet it or cook it. And I like that's it's just as scared of me as I am of it.

But it's still there. In my garage and at the end of this blog.


Continue at your own risk.


Because there's a opossum at the end of this blog.


YOU'RE STILL READING!!!!!!!! PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE - DO NOT GO ON!! ACHTUNG!


Likely to end up under the wheels of an SUV, the opossum is a deady creature that will steal your soul. Or at least wake you up at 3:00 a.m., skittering about the garage and clattering around with its opossum toys.


And it is at the end of this blog.


Listen...I have an idea: If we both stop reading now, we won't get to the end of this post and have to confront this horrendous opossum .


Because there's a opossum at the end of this blog!


Definitely a mammal, possibly a marsupial, it is surely nocturnal, as it has kept me up the last two nights with its screeching vermin wails.

Well, look at that.

This is the end of this blog post, and it's nothing but my sister's terribly ugly opossum-looking dog that she failed to make arrangments for so I had to go to her house and take it so it wouldn't starve to death and die when she left it and took off to Florida so now I have to take care of this foul furry gremlin while she's opossum free in the Sunshine State and I'm stuck here writing a run-on sentence about her smelly, mal-nutritioned, neglected canine that she shouldn't have gotten in the first place.

I told you there was nothing to be afraid of.