Lil Wayne and Drake

Carlie and I woke up at our friend Lindsey’s house in La Mirada with no plans for the sunny November Saturday. Obviously, we had to do something exciting.

“Let’s go to China Town!” We decided. Within an hour or two we were in the car driving toward Los Angeles. We figured it would be easy to find; we had all been there before.

I guess we forgot that Los Angeles is a little bit bigger than our hometown of Eureka, because we drove around, down many one-way streets, through Little Tokyo, and past the Walt Disney Concert Hall about four times before we decided to stop at a Starbuck’s for coffee and directions.

“Down the block, turn left, and turn left again in two blocks,” the Starbuck’s worker told us. Almost positive we had already tried that, we followed his directions and, of course, drove into China Town minutes later.

The three of us were walking down the main street when Carlie and I spotted some little plastic aquariums on the tables of some of the street vendors.

“Oh my gosh!” we squealed. “Baby turtles! They’re so cute!”

“Wow,” I said to Carlie. “They’re only five dollars!”

“Do you want to get them?”

“Yes! Do you?”

“Yes!”

A Chinese woman approached us. “You want to buy?”

“Yes!”

“Five dollars for two turtles, and one dollar for food.” She handed me a bag of little brown pellets. Within 30 seconds of spotting the little creatures, Carlie and I were the owners of two baby red-eared sliders (which, we later discovered, were too small to be sold legally).

“What are you going to name them?” Lindsey asked.

“Lindsey,” I said, a little bit condescendingly. “We’re going to have to think about it for a while... Mine’s Lil Wayne!”

Apparently Carlie had thought for long enough, too. “Mine’s Drake!”

That evening we showed up at our friend Dillon’s dorm room with our new babies.

“Why did you buy those?”

“Dillon! They’re so cute!”

Dillon seemed to think it was ridiculous that we bought Lil Wayne and Drake after so little consideration. We maintained that it was a good decision because—hello!—they are so cute.

Then we realized that aquariums are kind of expensive. And that the turtles wouldn’t eat the “food” the Chinese lady had sold us. And that they needed a lamp and an island.

Our $5 turtles ended up costing us about $70 that week. But the bottom line is that we have baby turtles now. Maybe we don’t always think things through, but the outcome is almost always amazing.

Drake in the front and Lil Wayne in the back.  (This is the container we bought them in.  Their new home is MUCH bigger and nicer.)  Just look at them!  They are so cute!