Mom...what comes around....goes around. (The invasion of the frogs)

Growing up in an area that experiences regular droughts, the city I lived in did everything they could to gather as much rain water as possible. Parks were built all over town that were nothing more than big water basins...grassy most of the time, but when a rain would fall, they would fill and let the precious resource drain back into the ground.

Such a park was built only around the block from my home.  And in it was a fenced off drainage area that had turned into a marsh...where there were toads and frogs.  Lots and lots of them.  (While I'm the sort of girl who hates spiders and is squeamish around snakes, frogs are a different matter altogether...frogs and toads are cool.)

I was in the first year of Jr. High (7th grade) when during a late summer rainy day (rather rare for there) a friend and I decided we were going to catch some of those frogs.  Not to hurt them...but to bring some to my parents yard.... so we took a big bucket my Dad had, and went to the park.  We had discovered a loose segment of fencing some weeks back, and we shimmied under it...getting rather muddy.  Then, standing in marsh (and never having the reasonable wonder if there were snakes in said marsh) we caught baby frogs. (Or maybe they were toads...I couldn't tell the difference, and still can't generally.)  The little froggies and toads were tiny, about a digit of one's pinkie finger in length...and there were LOTS.  As we splashed all about the marsh, catching frogs by the dozens and dozens, with the rain softly falling upon us, we got muddier...and muddier....and muddier.

When we had caught all we wanted, we went back out and headed the short walk to my home...sure that Mom, an avid gardener, was going to be *thrilled* with all the frogs for her garden!  Imagine all the bad bugs they'd eat!  She was going to love it!

She met us on the walk-way coming up to the house....not looking pleased.

It wasn't the frogs that phased her...those were fine.

It was the fact that we thought we were going into her new home, covered in mud.  Looking at each other, my friend and I realized just how filthy we had gotten.

We were a mess.  A happy mess, but a mess all the same.

Mom, ever practical, hosed us off in the front yard.  Thankfully, summers are warm there, so the cold water felt nice....but she didn't stop until the water ran clear off of us.

As we dried off...Mom laughed and said, "Well, I suppose I earned this."

We perked up.....

She sighed and told us the following:

When she was a little girl, she and her brother would walk to school past this marshy area each day.  One day....they noticed little frogs.

Now, her brother John, being a young boy instantly said, "We should catch some and take them home!"  Mom....following John in all things (and being a bit of a tomboy) agreed.  On their way home from school, the caught dozens and dozens of little frogs and stuffed them in their metal lunch boxes.  Happily content, they set off towards home.

On the way home....a group of their friends caught up with them and urged them to drop off their stuff at the house and come play. Who can resist such an offer?

My grandmother worked nights then, and my grandfather didn't get home until seven.....Mom's Scottish grandfather lived with the family and looked after the children until their father got home.  The daily routine was to place the lunchboxes on the counter, and when my grandmother got home in the wee, dark hours of the night, she'd make the lunches and head to bed.

So my Mom and her older brother put their lunchboxes on the counter, dropped their book bags, told their grandfather they were going out to play and zoom- they were off!  They played tag and kickball and didn't come home until the sunset and they were ravenous for dinner.

They forgot all about the little frogs in those lunch boxes.

Late that night, my grandmother...a very, very, very prim and proper woman who liked things "just so" got home.  Into the still, quiet kitchen she walked.  She got out the makings for a sandwich for her for a late supper, and to make lunches with for the children.....and then ....

The house awoke to screaming.  And cursing....which was very rare, my Mother told me, to hear from her Mom at that point in time.  Yelling and cursing and the sound of a chair being yanked across a tile floor.

"AL!  AL you get up right now!  And you get those children up! Right now! AL! John! Eileen! This isn't funny at all!"

My grandfather (Al)...John, Mom and their sleepy grandfather (Andrew) all rushed into the kitchen.  There, on a chair, in the middle of the room, stood my grandmother, flushed, scared and angry.  All around...on counters, on the floor, hopping, hopping, hopping were little frogs. Everywhere.

No one got much sleep that night.  Frogs had to be caught and put outside.  Baby frogs are fast and hide easily...it took all night.

My grandmother looked at my uncle and my Mom and said, "Don't you ever....ever...ever...even think of doing something like this again!"

When Mom finished telling us the story, she was wiping tears from her eyes from laughing. (And no one had a laugh like my Mom's.)

"So Beth," she said, "I guess I can't really blame you at all.  Now let's go put these frogs in the garden."