He's not without some gift for meaningless chatter, the Complete and Total Loser, and has miniconversations with the wide variety of customers he rings up during his dull days at the store he works in.
Today, one customer the Loser spoke with was a young Malaysian woman, college age, probably. The Loser mentioned having traveled to the peninsula's east coast, where on a beach called Rantau Abang he and other tourists witnessed a female leatherback turtles struggle to climb from the sea, dig a hole and lay her eggs in them. The woman was surprised to hear the Loser had seen this as it seldom happens now. "Just once last year," she said.
The Loser was surprised to hear this. When he'd seen this, 1989, the people in charge were doing it responsibly. No flash photos or flashlights. No blocking the reptile's path to or from the nesting grounds. The eggs were to be gently dug up and moved to a protected area to prevent animal and human predation.
Some Net search taught the Loser that it's what happens after the turtles are released that's put them on the verge of extinction during the decades they need to live before reproducing. Pollution, boats, long fishing lines, nets.
Their custom of laying on that beach, intact for many millions of years, is coming to an end.
Later in the evening the Loser remembered that his trip there 22 years ago happened to be on his birthday, which is today. There was a fetching English woman he spend some Platonic time with. The Loser doesn't remember her name, only that she loved Greece and was five feet tall and weighed 85 pounds, which is light but she simply looked like a miniature normal woman. She probably has the beginnings of osteoporosis by now, though.
No comments:
Post a Comment