Pearce, D. et al.
“She’s mature for her age!” claims Walter, the oldest giant tortoise in The Galapagos Islands, who has used this excuse more times than he’d care to admit. At 144-years-old, it’s fair to expect someone at Walter’s age should be settling down soon, but it would appear that this silver fox isn’t quite ready to be caged! Residents of the island say Walter has been strutting around with his latest young piece of ass, Dorothy, a wide-eyed innocent 96-year-old leopard tortoise [1].
“It gets to a point where you have to draw a line,” declared one local, who preferred to remain anonymous. “Walter has always been a bit of a cradle robber, but up until now, he at least had the sense to stay within the triple digit age range. But 96? You can’t expect a pretty young thing like her to have any idea what she’s doing.”
The couple met on PlentyOfTime, an online dating website for tortoises [2]. We asked if Dorothy lied about her age, but Walter admitted that he knew exactly what he was getting into. “I’ve tried dating women my age, but I’m just not attracted to them. I hunger for those naively seductive eyes that you can only find on a nubile girl in her 90’s.”
Friends have tried reasoning with Walter to no avail. Harry, Walter’s childhood best friend, has tried doing the math on their ages, pointing out that when Walter was 54, Dorothy would have been 6. Ever the curmudgeon, Walter delivered a jaded retort: “When I was 54, it was the great depression, so I wouldn’t have been doing a damned thing but drinking scotch and staring out the window”.
We asked Dorothy what exactly she finds so enticing about older reptiles. “Something about their wisdom. At 96, I feel so empty-headed, there’s so much of life life I have yet to experience and learn from,” she replied. “I think there’s something beautiful about a romance that crosses generations, two souls exchanging the wisdom of their differing worlds with each other.”
“Plus it makes my parents really mad.”
