Sure We'll Take Your Frogs

Since you haven’t known me for long and don’t know me well, I will make a confession to you about a personality trait that would have become obvious a year from now. I have no ability to say no, to anything (other than to the commission of crimes and other clearly bad behaviors). Because I am in client service, that personality trait has proven to serve my clients extremely well. Because I am a mother, that personality trait has proven to serve my children extremely well. Because I am a super type A, if it isn’t perfect, just give me five minutes and I will make it perfect person, I am high strung, overextended and exhausted almost all of the time. And yet, I still cannot manage to say no when requested to do damn near anything that at the time the question is asked of me seems reasonable. When Heidi and Gregory announced that they were moving from Austin to Shreveport, Louisiana, after several days of peppering them with every swamp/gator/crawfish/jug band joke we had ever heard, we started to feel really crappy about their departure. We love Heidi and Gregory. We drink – a lot – with Heidi and Gregory and have spent most of our favorite moments in Austin in their company. And they were leaving. So what else could I do but offer to have them stay with us prior to their departure with all of their various and sundry pets. As a note, we have no pets. Shortly after the painted turtle disaster of 2002 that we arrived at the firm conclusion that we are not a pet family. There are too many of us for us to be a pet family. But as the Kallenbergs packed their car and struggled to figure out what to do with their two frogs who lived in a bowl and who were clearly not built for the open road, I heard myself say, “Would it be helpful to you guys if we kept the frogs here?” Their answer. “It would totally save our lives.” A ridiculous overstatement, but just enough to make me beam as I listened to the feeding and cleaning instructions. For the first few days the kids were genuinely interested in the frogs. They named them Lovesmile and Peacerainbow (they in this case was Ella, our resident hippie, baths are totally optional child). They argued over who would feed them and who would clean their bowl. A week later, the frogs could have jumped out of the bowl and onto their heads and I am not sure that they would have noticed. Two weeks later, the frog bowl was so dirty that you could barely make out the shape of the two frogs, who both occasionally stuck their faces above the surface, presumably due to the rapidly decreasing oxygen content of the soot colored frog water. We were sitting at the kitchen table on Saturday morning eating cereal and planning our day when Mattie looked at me and said, “Mom, it smells like frog butt in here.” I have no idea what a frog butt smells like and I am hoping that Mattie doesn’t either, but she was absolutely correct, the frogs had turned our kitchen into a swamp and it was time for them to go. It was raining so the kids weren’t that interested in going all the way down to the creek. And my husband assured them that as long as the frogs were in contact with water, they would be fine, and were perfectly capable of hopping down the steps of our back deck, over the gate and down to the creek where they would be much happier than if they were forced to continue to live in captivity. Mattie took the top off of the bowl and stepped back as the frogs sprang out and off, leaving behind a trail of frog poo and four (Justin hates animals) children who were now firmly convinced that what we really need is a hamster. That would be much more fun.