I know what you're thinking. The title of this post is absurd. And it is. But, let me tell you, you should invest some time in turtle racing - I highly recommend it.
This past Friday, I made the trip to Chicago to spend an evening with friends. The evening was carefully planned - attend the Tony Award winning musical, Spring Awakening at Northwestern University followed by going to an establishment called Big Joe's in Lincoln Square for turtle racing. That's right - racing turtles. Talk about an oxymoron. But, we do know the story of the tortoise and the hare and we learned that slow and steady wins the race. And that is exactly the experience at Big Joe's.
So, this is how the night works - there are 7 races. The first 6 determine the winners for the final 7th race at the end of the evening. You are given tickets throughout the evening and those tickets are placed into a bucket. By the last race - you have a ton of tickets and you hope and pray that the odds are ever in your favor (yes... that is a shameless plug for the Hunger Games...). If a ticket is pulled that you posses - you then represent a turtle in their race. There are 6 turtles, all ranging in size and skill. My favorite is a turtle named Yolanda. She is also affectionately known as the slowest (insert profanity) turtle in the world. She is my home girl. Never once did I see her move an inch throughout the 4 races I bore witness to. Talk about going against the crowd, and I respect that.
The numbers for the 6th race began to be called and sure enough, one of our groups' numbers was called. My friends had me go to the race table and I was the personal cheerleader for turtle #6 - Lucky Dan. What an exciting race - after some time of Lucky Dan being a little lazy, he picked it up to bring us the bronze. And although it seems a bit odd to get excited over watching turtles race, I have to say it's one of the most strange yet one of the most interesting things I have done in recent times. And extremely American.
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