To bring or not to bring ...

... a turtle on one's Christmas vacation. That is indeed the question. I'm going to my parents' tomorrow for five days, and I am so torn about whether or not to bring Raphael. I brought him last year ... but that was for his health, because he was so strongly affected by the severe cold we had last winter - what was it, the coldest November for 104 years? - and I was seriously concerned that if I left him at home he would hide himself away somewhere as soon as I walked out the door and sleep for 120 hours ... underneath the carpet, or wherever he'd end up. (That's not a joke about the carpet.)

It's not good for him to be on dry land for that long, so I wasn't too thrilled about that idea ... and ended up taking him with me on vacation, which he wasn't too thrilled about. It was very confusing for him to be in a totally new place like that, even though he had his pond and basking spot and everything. (My mother also wasn't too happy with him being there, she has ophidiophobia and is repulsed by his supposedly snakelike head. :-D But his presence did not adversely affect her health.)

This year it hasn't been anywhere near that cold ... November was extremely mild, in fact, and it's only over the past few days that December's gotten really cold. So I don't have the same worry as last year. But I'm still thinking about taking him with me. He'd probably be fine at home alone, but I know that he's only really interested in one of the two. He'd much rather stay home than go anywhere else, obviously - turtles like familiar places - but he definitely doesn't want to be alone. He wants to be with me ... ideally in physical contact with me, and ideally all the time. I may have mentioned this before; he is rather oversocialized now and overly interested in human contact. Well, at least contact with me. Reptiles supposedly dislike that, but Raphael seems to have missed the memo on that one.

The past couple of weeks I haven't had much time to spend with him, for obvious reasons ... Christmas preparations and all that that entails ... and I can tell that he's not too happy with that. He wants my attention --> is not getting my attention --> is not happy turtle. Five days' vacation would make it possible to spend a lot of time with him, but then of course he would have to be there with me. So I'd have to bring him, even though he won't be happy about going there. But he would be happy about spending lots of time with his precious twolegs. So what to do? To bring or not to bring?

If only turtles could talk ... :-)