Frogs

In third grade I learned that the Spanish word for frogs was rana. I’m terrible at languages, to the point of mental retardation. So for that entire year the only r word or word with a na sound in it I learned was rana. Including my own name. The Spanish teacher thought I had some weird obsession.

My aunt’s a science teacher. Once she took me on one of her class field trips to a pond and talked about the wildlife there. One example was the bullfrog, which has two eyelids. A light tap will cause him to lower the second eyelid. Ten years later the image of twenty fifth graders poking a frog in the eye has still not left me.

My sister and I used to bring home frog eggs in buckets to see them hatch into tadpoles and eventually tiny frogs. Every year my mom would make us leave the buckets outside and every year we’d sneak them into our room. Most of the eggs would hatch. Half the tadpoles would survive. My mom and dad would finally catch on when tiny frogs invaded the house like an Egyptian plague and the smell of dead tadpoles permeated the air. It was always a surprise to my sister and me too. After the first day or so, we always forgot that we had hidden the buckets in the closets or under the bed. I truly believe my mothering skills have improved since then. My sister truly believes she’ll make a really good aunt.

I’ve experience a frog bomb. Naturally occurring. My friend had a dead, bloated, water logged frog on her driveway, an eyesore yes, but I believe she was just afraid that the neighborhood dogs would eat it. Honestly, she’s just crazy and I’m not sure of her reasoning. Anyway, she was compelled to move it. I offered to drive over it with my car a few times. Not an actual solution, but it did solve the problem of having to touch it. Instead she grabbed a shovel and we gathered around. As soon as that shovel touched that frog it exploded. All over us. I do not want to consider what was in the two pound dead bloated frog. Now we had to move bits and pieces and scrape the damn thing. I would have just let the dogs eat it, take their chances, I was never very fond of them anyway.