What do turtles have to do with macarons?

It's not quite "the answer to life, the universe, and everything" - but I'll finally answer this burning question anyway

About ten years ago, I had just moved to Tokyo for grad school when I found her while out shopping with my best friend: the turtle of all turtles, the original, the one that is so much “turtle” that that’s literally her name: Kame-san. “Kame” (亀) means turtle in Japanese, and -san is a suffix to express professional distance or respect, sort of like Mr., Ms. etc. It can be attached to last names, first names, or even random objects. Think your computer deserves a bit of reverence for all the work it helps you with? Pasokon-san it is. (“Pasokon” is short for “paasonaru kompyutaa”, or as you probably guessed it, PC.) There’s a spider in your room you want to kick out without incurring its wrath? Kumo-san, please go away and don’t eat me.

… Where was I? Right, Kame-san, the OG Turtle, the one you can see in my main image. I have actually been a turtle enthusiast for most of my life, perhaps briefly interrupted by the obligatory horse girl phase most girls have. I never had a real turtle or tortoise, but there are photos of me as a baby holding a turtle toy in the bath, and I credit that floating turtle with saving my life in the pool one time when I couldn’t swim yet and clung to it for dear life. Sure, it was probably not the hand-sized toy that saved me, but my love for turtles transcends logic, okay?

Anyway, we were out shopping for an outfit I could wear on the first date with a nice guy who would later become my husband, and there she was, huge, green and yellow, and squishy. She wasn’t even being sold as a plushie, but as a cushion or dakimakura, a pillow you hug while you sleep. Being a lifelong insomniac, I knew I had to buy her. She was only 1.000 Yen, which is less than 8 dollars at the current exchange rate. These days, I would probably have qualms about child labor and toxic materials, but I was young and naive back then. Kame-san went home with me, and to this day, my husband and I joke that she predates him and therefore takes precedence when it comes to bed space and dessert choices.

So why the macarons, you may ask? There’s an utterly bizarre Nintendo 3DS game called Tomodachi Life (or Tomodachi Collection in Japanese) that was clearly created in a drug-fueled all-nighter some poor Nintendo employees had to pull. Basically, you create characters, or Miis, that look like your friends (tomodachi) and watch them do their thing. It’s like The Sims on what I assume an acid trip looks like. The game randomly assigns them food they like and food they dislike, and if you finally find their favorite food in the world, they are launched into space while shouting “yummy!” For Kame-san, who we made as a character “for the lulz”, this favorite food item turned out to be macarons. I rarely ever play this game anymore, but the macaron joke stuck.

Now, I love me some baked goods. Before having to change my diet to anti-inflammatory, I used to bake some excellent brownies. My mother-in-law once said that I must be 50% chocolate. But macarons were not really on my radar. They’re expensive to buy, and finicky to make, and they’re so small it feels like you’ve barely eaten anything. But Tokyo has some really good patisseries, and most of them are conveniently located right by major train stations, so I started buying macarons on my way home occasionally. I even started an Instagram for Kame-san where “she” could review all the different macarons we had tried. It never really took off (she was hoping for free samples!), I assume in large part due to my non-existing photography skills. (If you’re curious about the winner: it’s the Earl Grey macaron by Sadaharu Aoki.)

One time after a trip, I accidentally left my bag with Kame-san in it on the train. I noticed it as soon as the train left the station and chased it to the next (and final) stop, but it was too late. My bag was gone, and with it Kame-san. I searched high and low, posted on the internet, contacted the train company, and my now-husband spent hours looking for the discarded bag and turtle around the station, but we could not get her back. There was nothing of monetary value in that bag, only sentimental items, and to this day I wonder what kind of person would do this. To make matters worse, the company who had made my Kame-san had stopped production. Through some miracle, my husband managed to secure the last turtle from the successor line in Japan and had his parents send it to us in Europe, where we had since moved. I remember coming home from work after crying for a week about losing my most important item, sleep assistance, and friend, and finding Kame-san 2 on my bed. My friends in Japan also managed to score a medium and mini version of Kame-san, and my husband explained to me that while her original body was lost, her sould had transferred into the new body, and could transfer into her smaller bodies if I needed to take her places. (Yes, I am a grown adult, I’m just sentimental.) I ended up marrying him the following year, and Kame-san continues to demand macarons from us. (She sleeps in a big pillowcase now, though, to keep her clean.)

Oh, and I guess both turtles and macarons have shells. But that’s the short and inaccurate answer to the initial question. :D