The saga of Chonka continues.Fortunately since turtles of her ilk rarely sun themselves she has not been sighted again and the mystery will deepen and as I previously have mentioned we city slickers, hog butchers, and big fucking assholes like nothing better than to pause in our nefarious deeds and go Awww over some local critter.
Was reading this article in the Sun-Times this morning as the local NPR station was airing the story. Awww.
The sun was already high in the sky when we embarked on our quest — hopeful, but uncertain of what lay before us.
Yes, the early bird catches the worm, but we weren’t scavenging for nightcrawlers. Our mission: to find Chonkosaurus, the fat-shamed snapping turtle that looks like it has been supplementing its diet of frogs, plants and fish with a side of Chicago-style pizza, Italian beef and maybe a deep-fried Twinkie or two.
Our Chicago River expedition party on Wednesday included Sara Ruane, the Field Museum’s herpetology expert. Five years ago, while in Belize, she captured a 9-foot-long tiger rat snake trying to bite her face. She’s trapped tree boas in Guyana and wrestled snapping turtles out of giant nets in Nebraska.
Who better to find Chonk, the turgid turtle that’s become an internet megastar?
Our party of five climbed aboard a motorized rubber dinghy just north of the Kinzie Street Bridge. A novice among us volunteered to take the helm.
“You won’t be able to get there if you can’t go straight!” bellowed our expedition guide, Charlie Portis, owner of Wateriders LLC, which offers Chicago River kayak tours and rentals.
With a little further instruction, we were soon underway.
Our journey would take us one mile north. If we avoided being snagged by submerged pilings or swamped by passing river cruise boats, we would reach our destination in about half an hour.
Joey Santore, the colorful local who captured Chonk on video in early May, said he’d heard reports of a more recent sighting.
“She’s out there a lot,” Santore said.
Ruane cautioned us against unbridled optimism.
“They don’t bask that much,” she said. “They spend most of their time underwater. … Typically, it’s females coming out to lay their eggs.”
Snapping turtles lay about 20 to 40 eggs at a time — each about the size and shape of a pingpong ball, Ruane said.
How many typically survive?
“Maybe none,” she said. “Raccoons, skunks and other predators can eat all the eggs the night they are laid and baby turtles are eaten by big fish, herons and other aquatic predators.”
Chonkosaurus is likely native to the river.
“Snapping turtles can be found in many, if not most, bodies of water across their range,” Ruane said. “So any larger pond, lake or slower-moving river typically will have them.”
The adults have few predators — other than humans and train tracks.
Reports that Chonkosaurus might weigh 60 pounds were probably exaggerated. Snapping turtles get waterlogged — bloated — from spending all that time below the surface, Ruane said. She estimates this one is probably closer to 35 pounds. The biggest Ruane has heard about anywhere in the United States? Seventy-five pounds.
As we plied the murky waters, Canada geese honked overhead, a swallow swooped low in search of insects and from the riverbank, an infant stared bug-eyed at us from his stroller.
Ruane regaled us with stories of pulling snapping turtles out of nets in Nebraska.
“You grab these turtles by their back feet and, essentially, you kind of wrestle them backward so that the biting end is always facing away from you,” she said.
If her story gave her companions pause, we kept our thoughts to ourselves.
We were close now — very close. The city’s growl faded, punctuated only by a distant police siren or the occasional city bus rumbling over a nearby bridge. Leafy tree limbs hung over the riverbanks, mottling the water’s surface. We were on the east side of Goose Island, not far from the Division Street bridge.
“I’m looking intently,” Ruane said, her voice lowered. “We’re looking for a big clunky-looking turtle.”
A splash. Then another. Could it be …?
A turtle, yes, but not the one we were looking for. Red-eared slider turtles are abundant here, lounging in the sun on half-sunken logs. Most are not much bigger around than a dessert plate. We saw perhaps a dozen on our journey — some plopping into the the water as we passed by, others too absorbed with soaking up the sun to care.
We cut the motor and drifted toward the splintered pilings where the elusive Chonk had chosen to sun itself. Turtles are creatures of habit, Ruane said. If it wanted to bask, it might well return to the same spot.
We waited. And waited.
“It could be sitting just 10 feet over there near the shoreline under the water all this time and we just don’t know it,” Ruane said.
We circled, looking for any movement in the shadows along the shore.
Nothing. A fizz of surfacing bubbles caught my eye. It could be anything, Ruane said.
It was well past lunchtime. Hunger gnawed.
Ruane recalled once trying snapping turtle jambalaya.
“It was chewy. It was kind of fishy, but not in a good way,” she said.
We turned the boat around and headed for home.
“Well, Chonkosaurus, you’ve eluded us,” Ruane said.
Continuing to read my Sun-Times I came across a column on, um, bigness, and I think you will be glad that I did not include a photo for this one.
Why did Jordan Eldridge, of Michigan City, Indiana, submit to a series of 20 injections in a part of his anatomy where most men would never want even one?
He considers before answering.
“Well ...” the 33-year-old landscaper began. “I guess it’s just part of the culture. Bigger is better. I never really had too much of a problem in the bedroom. I have had a girlfriend tell me my johnson was small before. But it was an argument. You have to take it with a grain of salt.”
I’ve always thought penile enhancement is invariably some variety of scam.
“Historically, you’ve got to be careful what is out there,” agreed Dr. Jagan Kansal, a board-certified urologist in Chicago who specializes in sexual and reproductive medicine. His practice, Down There Urology, performed the PhalloFILL procedure on Eldridge. “There are a lot of advertisements promising you take a pill and your penis is going to get bigger. Oral medications won’t do that.”
Eldridge said he did not do it for romantic reasons.
“I asked my girlfriend that I was with currently, and she said, ‘No, I don’t think you need to do it.’”
Then why?
“It’s more of a personal thing,” he said. “You know, guys in the locker room. Everybody takes a glance, and you don’t want to be the smallest guy. Don’t want to be the biggest, but it never hurts to have a little bit more.”
PhalloFILL does not make the penis longer — Kansal says no reputable procedure promises that — but wider. Eldridge received shots of a substance called hyaluronic acid filler, a natural compound found in body joints.
Eldridge got 20 shots at four sessions in March and was surprised and happy to find the procedures performed by Kansal’s partner, Dr. Fenwa Famakinwa Milhouse, and an assistant.
“It was odd but pleasant,” Eldridge said. “I expected it to be an old man, but it was two beautiful women doing the procedure. What more could you ask for?”
Some medical authorities ask that men not do this, casting any attempt at penile enlargement as seeking a medical solution to a psychological problem.
“There’s little scientific support for nonsurgical methods to enlarge the penis,” states a Mayo Clinic web page devoted to penis enlargement. “And no trusted medical organization endorses penis surgery for purely cosmetic reasons.”
The Mayo Clinic page highlights the various methods — pills, lotions, vacuum pumps, stretching — dismissing them as some combination of unnecessary, ineffective and dangerous.
“Results may be disappointing,” the Mayo Clinic writes of the injection method, which sometimes uses body fat. “Some of the injected fat may spread unevenly or be reabsorbed by the body. This can lead to a penis that is curved, unevenly shaped and irregular looking. Scarring and problems with sensation and firmness of erections can also happen. Several other products have been used for injection, but with similar poor results.”
Eldridge said his results are uneven, but only a little.
“It’s not as perfectly symmetrical as God made it, but I don’t think too many people can compete with Him,” he said. “It’s pretty good.”
All told, he’s enthusiastic.
“It’s not that big of a change but gives myself more confidence,” he said. “I would recommend it to any guy that needed a little plumpness.”
His procedure cost $7,500. Eldridge got a discount because he agreed to be featured in a reality TV series, “Dr. Down Below,” the practice is producing, hoping to be picked up by TLC.
“With men’s health and genital issues, everyone wants to hear about it, and no one wants to ask about it,” Kansal said.
Eldridge compares the procedure to common women’s surgery.
“No one thinks twice about breast implants,” he said. “I think it’ll be a lot more popular in the future.”
Many men would be reluctant to discuss this with friends, never mind offer their stories to the media. He’s OK seeing this in the newspaper?
“I’m an open guy,” Eldridge said. “I’m a humorous guy. I don’t care. If you want to make fun of me, make fun of me. I feel that people who are making fun probably want to do it themselves. I think it’s cool. I would recommend it to any guys who have personal confidence issues. It’s just a confidence booster. You know you’ve got a little extra artillery.”
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