Froggie Came A-Callin'

I had a visitor one night that took me by surprise. I opened my laundry room door and a creature bounced off the wall onto my shirt and zipped off me to land on another wall. Talk about a heart stopping moment! As soon as he landed I noticed it was a brown frog whose body was about an inch long with legs  at least twice as long as his body. When he folded his legs in against his body to prepare for his next spring into the air he looked like a brown leaf on the wall.

Not wanting the poor creature to become dog fodder or dog entertainment until he expired from a heart attack, I quickly shut the door and began my attempts to catch him. I didn’t want to smash him or catch him by a leg and possibly injure him. My goal was to catch him with cupped hands and walk him out to the yard where he belonged. (Let us remember that I was 54 years old at the time.) This little guy was so fast and could spring from a dead sit to land somewhere more than three feet away in less than a second. He went around me, over me, past me, on top of me. After about fifteen minutes of Catch Me If You Can, we were both visibly breathing a little harder.

I decided I needed to think smarter. I needed to think like a frog. I opened the door to the garage and the garage door to the yard hoping he would sense, or smell, home and head that way. Didn’t happen. He hopped onto the washer. My next move was to cattle-rustle him the direction I wanted him to go. I flapped, I cooed, I talked to him. The only response I got was from the other side of the door where two large dogs were eager to find out what was so exciting on my side of the laundry room door. Now we have added the baying of the beasts on yonder side to the picture.

We managed to hop to the garage where he has now determined that Lil’ Buddy (the model A) would be a good home. I knew he would eventually die in the garage if I didn’t get him outside. I am sure the neighbors thought I was crazy dancing and whooping in the garage all alone with no music to be heard. Not to mention what it looked like when I made my dive under Lil’ Buddy when Froggie took off in that direction. I managed to get down on my hands and knees and herd him from under the car to a side wall where the recycling buckets were.

I knew I had him when he plopped down into the bottom of the recycle container! I covered the container with my whole body while he bounced around inside trying to escape. Heh, heh, I had him now. I waited until he tired, then angled my body such that I could get one hand cupped down on top of him. Then I gently brought the other hand down and maneuvered until he was safely nestled in my hands. Safely nestled was my term. His terminology would be vastly different. . . .something along the lines of “Oh #@#*! the monster’s got me.”

Okay, he was now in my hands. My body was still half on the recycling box with my knees grinding into the concrete floor and there was no-one to help hoist me up. I dropped to my haunches and landed on my backside, scooted to the wall and slid my body up the wall to gain vertical stance, groaning and moaning more than I did while giving birth to my daughter. Dang it, I do believe this was harder! This was no simple feat and took about five minutes, all the while this poor frog was whirling around in my hands emptying his bladder in pure panic.

I tried to console him as we walked to the yard where I set him free. He lost no time bounding away. As I washed my hands, I pondered on when and why my sense of protection and preservation swooped in so strongly. Why didn’t I just leave him locked in the garage? Why did I worry that I might back the car over him? Something about the defenseless creatures of the world makes me a big old softie. Now, if it had been a spider or a cockroach, one good whack with a shoe would have been well deserved. But a little frog . . . I just couldn’t resist the instinct to step in and save him.

So I burned the eggs in the pan. And I probably released him to the outdoors to the first creature that was waiting to snatch him up for a nocturnal snack. Or maybe he made it to the base of the tree to drop dead from heart failure over the ordeal. And there is the possibility that I would back over him the next morning in the driveway. But I made the attempt that night to do something good, and I felt a sense of accomplishment. It was a good feeling to hold the little frog and know that he was spared for the moment. I know he didn’t understand, but I wanted to save him. I needed to do an unselfish deed that day. I didn’t desire accolades from the heavens over an achievement, just needed a little frog to help me feel better about myself and the world.