Turtle’s Gym Visit Takes the Internet by Storm

One of the benefits that come with a gym membership is the occasional opportunity to bring a friend on a guest pass. However, in Florida, a fitness enthusiast managed to enter a gym without such a pass. As reported by WSVN, the audacious intruder was a turtle who sneaked into the Iron Knight Gym in Port St. Lucie through an open garage door, initiating a slow-paced chase around the facility by the manager.

“I don’t know if I should pick you up; I don’t want you to snap at me,” Nikki Baker muses during her encounter with the turtle, as mentioned in a video posted on CNN. “And I don’t want to hurt you.” The video captures the turtle, identified as a gopher tortoise—a species facing threats—wandering among the gym’s weight machines and dumbbells. Baker can be seen in the footage, following the turtle until she devises a plan to gently guide the intruder out of the gym using a towel.

Despite the stereotypical perception that turtles are slow, Baker remarks, “no, this guy was going.” The incident even prompted someone to write a whimsical online review of the gym, cleverly adopting the perspective of the turtle: “Thought I’d give them a try cus the door was open,” the “turtle” humorously states. “All in all, it seems like a great facility, however, I decided not to enroll because I am a turtle.” (Read more strange stuff stories.)