Last month, Howard the Turtle, sold his shell, bought a shipping container and has made it his new home.

                      “My old shell didn’t have quite enough room to accommodate my newly acquired hobbies, which include indoor pole dancing, Jello wrestling, and speed chess,”  Howard says.

                Howard’s old shell home was only four square feet.   He looked at other types of metal container homes with more space, including, an empty coffee can, a mailbox, an old Kenmore washing machine, and the dumpster behind the 7/11 on South Broadway.  Howard found those housing options unsatisfactory, especially the washing machine and the dumpster.

          “The fabric softener made me itch and the spin cycle gave me vertigo.  And frankly, I wasn’t crazy about the dumpster’s location.  And the rumors about the rats who bombastically debate the aphorisms and irony of Nietzsche, in the alley, late into the night, was a real concern.”

           Howard’s new shipping container home has a total of one hundred and sixty square feet of living space.

                   “My old home was basically a one bedroom studio apartment.  I sold it to a hermit crab who was also looking to upgrade to a larger living space,” Howard says.  “It was a relatively smooth legal transaction, except for the excessive realtor’s commission, and the part where they had to surgically detach the shell from my back, which created a gaping hole and exposed some damaged shingles.  Which made my home owners and health insurance rates shoot through the roof!”

                 Shipping container homes have become very popular over the past several years.

             “I love my new home,” Howard says.   “It’s located on great beach front property and it’s roomy enough to accommodate the thousands of turtle hatchlings that emerge every summer.   There are a few downsides, however.  Because it’s a big metal box, it basically becomes an oven in the summertime.  And I have to crank up the AC full blast to keep from becoming turtle soup.  In addition, because my home is a big, metal box, it’s been struck by lightning thirty-six times… this week.”