A Turtle with a Lisp

It's been awhile, but I blame it on the pain. If you're familiar with the digestive system of the turtle, you're aware of the dangers of infections of the salivary glands.

I have such an infection. Were I not to have the strength of ten normal turtles, I may have passed on long ago.

For awhile, I fought with all I had to resist the pain of my swollen gland and tongue. I acted normal, but for the new lisp from the pain in my tongue. Here's what I observed, I can be mean. I am really a sweetheart of a turtle, but the pain made me quick to anger at people. I snapped at Ginger, at my boss, I was miserable.

For some reason, it was much easier to make others miserable as well. And you can only imaging the jokes when your a turtle and snapping at people...

Alas I finally succumbed to the pain and asked my Doc for something to help. He handed me a piece of paper with scribbles on it and after a trip to the pharmacy, I was back in shape. Not only was the pain gone, but I felt great. (Perhaps the doc forgot to reduce the dosage for a turtle's body size.)

Here's what concerns me. I had this overwhelming desire to encourage and help people.

Is that why we Americans are sometimes so mean? Is it the pain? I thought statistics showed as as heavily medicated so why aren't we nicer in general?

I want to know what normal is. In normal life without medication and without pain what are we like. Perhaps this goes back to the question of whether we are inherently good or evil.

Or perhaps it won't matter once the medication fades away.