For months, my friends kept talking about a Turtle Club, turtle degrees, and mysterious initiation moments. Every time I asked, I’d hear things like, “Wait until this event,” or “Next meeting,” or “Soon.”

After enough delays, I finally did what any reasonable secretary would do — I put it on the agenda for February.

Last night, I arrived a little late to the Hillbilly Club meeting and found myself standing in front of a locked door. That’s when I was redirected to another building and told, simply, “You’ll become a turtle tonight.”

And just like that — it happened.

I’m officially a Turtle.

I even received a card from the Ancient & Honorable Order of Turtles with the Vile and Impious Wretches, which, as it turns out, comes with an important privilege: I can now make other people into turtles.

Naturally, when I got home, I tried logging into the Turtle website. To confirm membership, it presented four riddles. Two of them hadn’t been covered during our degree ceremony. The Head Snapping Turtle had read plenty of questions — just not the ones that mattered most.

One riddle completely stumped me.

I reached out to our club’s Head Snapping Turtle, who promised to look into it over the weekend. In the meantime, curiosity got the better of me. Since I was already a certified Turtle, I figured a little technical sleuthing was fair game.

Let’s just say… they tried to hide the answers.

But with most of them already solved, I was able to track down what I’d gotten wrong and finally complete the login.

Mission accomplished.

Now I have a referral link to share with new turtles. If I can recruit 25 people, I’ll earn the rank of Snapping Turtle. As part of the process, I was also asked to create a pond (club), so I named it:

Royal Giggles & The Curiously Crowned

A nod to Front Royal — and an invitation to anyone curious enough to join in.

After all, everyone deserves a crown.