New door open

unfortunately, because she is also a ~100yr old green sea turtle, i legally cannot touch her. she’s a protected species, and a fairly prominent individual at that, and im not one of the aquarists who dives into that tank NOR am i a vet, so i’m not among the handful of people who are ALLOWED to give her scratchies. she knows all of the divers personally, and knows that i am not one of them. she doesn’t care. she wants attention and because she’s the specialest princess in the entire universe she will do anything in her power to get it.

she also throws a big ol tantrum when i end up not petting her. she’ll stick up her head to snort water at me, slap at the platform and ladder with her fins, and then swim under the dive platform and bump her shell against the bottom — she’s a 500lb turtle, which is a lot of weight for her to be throwing around. i usually have to move pretty quick to get off the platform and onto solid ground cuz there have been times where i’ve genuinely felt like i was about to lose my balance and REALLY didn’t want to end up falling into the tank.

Age restrictions on purchasing cigarettes pass easily. But laws prohibiting smoking where children are forced to breathe in secondhand smoke are much harder to pass.

Children under a certain age are prohibited from using most social media websites. But adults are allowed to post videos of their children's meltdowns.

Teenagers need their parents' permission to get body modifications. But parents can get their babies' ears pierced.

Anyone who genuinely wants to protect children would not panic about the children's own choices while ignoring what adults force on them. Anyone who genuinely wants to protect children would not insist that studies on the dangers of children's own choices be fully trusted and obeyed while ignoring and arguing with studies on the dangers of how adults treat children.