The Frog Incident
Living in Florida, my wife and I have encountered “wildlife” that have sneaked into our home. We are not alone in this, my sister-in-law and her family had an opossum in her home that put her in a panic. But, to quote the bar owner in Irma La Douce, “That’s another story”.
Barbara and I had just returned from dinner when we found a cylindrical piece of excrement on the bathroom countertop. It was too big to be from a giant palmetto bug, my first guess, and did not resemble anything produced by a mouse. I prayed it wasn’t from a snake. I wisely didn’t tell Barbara my suspicions. I cleaned it up and looked around for any other evidence or sight of the creature. I didn’t find anything and we went to bed.
Over the next two days I continued my search and set out roach bait, hoping to catch or kill whatever had deposited that little “present” for us. Nothing turned up.
The third night, I had gone to sleep around 10:30. Around 11:30 Barbara woke me suddenly in a very agitated manner. I woke up a little grouchy and skeptical that there was a real emergency.
About a month ago, Barbara had awakened me from a sound sleep by demanding I get up for an emergency.
It turned out the emergency was the sudden retirement of Andrew Luck, the quarterback from football. Andrew Luck was Barbara’s (and my) quarterback on our Fantasy Football team.
Barbara was very agitated and insisted I get up to help her cope with this “disaster”.
I did not consider this something I should have been woken up for since:
a) The season didn’t start for a week
b) We had a good backup quarterback
c) What was I supposed to do at 1:30 AM that couldn’t wait til morning.
Now once I am awake, I find it difficult to go back to sleep. I was unable to return to sleep for 2 hours.
Based on the above, I was sure there was not an “emergency” that required my getting woken up once again.
I was wrong!
“Get up, get up,” Barbara said loudly. “There is a giant frog on the wall”.
Now alert, I quickly got up and took a look at what she was talking about. Sure enough, there was a rather large green frog gripping our wall in the bedroom next to Barbara’s side of the bed.
“Get rid of it,” she commanded.
I went to the kitchen and initially got out a cereal bowl. I judged it to be too small and got a soup bowl instead. I then got a thin magazine to use as a cover for the bowl once I had captured the frog.
I returned to the bedroom and approached the frog with my hunting equipment. I managed to cover the frog and slip the magazine under the bowl so as to capture the frog inside my trap. I carefully lifted the bowl off the wall without dislodging the magazine and hurried towards the front door so I could release the frog outside.
As I walked carefully towards the door, I assessed my situation.
The lights in the hallway leading to the door were out, the alarm was on, the door locked, both of my hands were holding the bowl and magazine in place, the street light was on and bright,, our across the street neighbor’s lights ere on, and I was “au natural” (TMI?).
How was I to get the frog outside, prevent it from hopping back into our house and not be seen by our neighbors or a passing car?
Fortunately Barbara had arrived before me, not quite so “au natural” as I, but enough that she would not want to be seen by others (more TMI?).
She disarmed the alarm, and then to my consternation put on the hall light and unlocked the door, leaving it somewhat ajar for me.
I quickly bent down and trying not extend anything but my arms outside the door, put the magazine covered bowl outside, slowly turned it over, and uncovered it so the frog could get away.
He ( for the sake of political correctness I concede it could have been a she ) looked back at me for several seconds, as if he had never seen a 73 year old “au natural” man before and then hopped onto the front lawn. I quickly closed the door and turned off the light.
We returned to the bedroom. It was clear that the frog was the creature that had left the excrement since an identical piece was again on the countertop.
We went back to bed.
“Why did you turn on the light ,” I asked?
“I had to see,” she said.
“There was enough light coming through the long window in the doorframe. What if someone saw us?” I responded.
“What’s the difference? Besides in Europe people go around like this all the time,” she surprisingly declared.
“I think there is a law that says you can’t be more than 30 to go around like that in public” I unwisely said.
Barbara gave me “The Look”. “Are you sure you want to say that with its implications about how I look? You’re lucky I didn’t push you out the door.”
She continued to glare at me.
Fortunately I was able to stay awake and alert for the remainder of the night.
