My New Idol

There’s a toad that’s been hanging out on our porch. I love him.

I first noticed him Friday night, just sitting on the middle of our front porch. I was surprised to see him there, and a bit confused—why was he there? What did he want? And I’m not speaking metaphorically or asking large metaphysical questions here: I was serious. It’s not where one normally finds a toad, smack-dab in the middle of our porch.

Of course, I soon realized he was hunting bugs, and we do seem to have an even larger number than usual this year, flitting around our outside lights. So looked at from a toad’s perspective, it probably is a most happy hunting ground indeed.

The next morning we set off on what’s become a semi-regular Saturday morning routine: after allowing the darling children to fry their brains with hours of Saturday morning cartoons (one of the only ways they’re able to distinguish one day from another) while scarfing down Sugar-Frosted Cocoa Bombs™ (no, not really—Top Management and I save those for ourselves), we hit the local farmer’s market (pitifully small but cozy and with kickass local produce—nothin’ like corn that was picked about ninety minutes earlier). Then it’s off to our local library (also small and cozy but staffed by the finest librarians to be found in the world; rumor has it that the Library of Congress has been trying to lure the entire staff away for years but to no avail—good for us personally but bad for the world at large but then again, the best things in life tend to be that way).

We get home and who’s hanging out on our porch but my buddy the toad. I was so pleased to see him. He’d moved to the very edge, half hidden by the bottom of the porch railing, a mere millimeter’s hop away from being able to escape into the bushes. But he didn’t. He allowed us to gaze admiringly at him, serene in the knowledge that he could jump away at a moment’s notice, faster than we could step forward and grab. And failing that, he could always pee on us. I know from personal experience that’s a mighty powerful deterrent and such awesome defensive power makes one great.

We decided to leave Toad the Mighty alone to enjoy his Saturday. I couldn’t help but notice, however, that his little spot of the porch was in shade, and that the rotation of the planet was about to eradicate his tiny little oasis and the full force of the sun was soon to be beating down upon his beautiful self. And sure enough, I looked out an hour later, and he was gone.

I was so sad. I was so happy to have the little bugger out there, lazily enjoying his Saturday without a care in the world: no appointments, no meetings, no bills to pay, no lawn to mow, no peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to make. Just hang out on the porch, enjoy a slight breeze and snack on any insects foolish enough to carelessly glide by, mistaking The Great Toad for a rock. But clearly the sun had gotten to be too much and he’d at long last made that leap down into the cool of the bushes. And thus ended my brief and, alas, one-sided love affair with Toad the Magnificent.

Not so fast. He was back again last night, in the same position as before. Apparently a good restaurant is hard to come by in the toad world as well, so when you find one with just the right ambience, you stick with it.

The thing is, this particular restaurant can’t be easy to get to. Top Management has suggested setting up a Toad-Cam and if I could, I would, because I’d love to know how he gets up our four steps—that has GOT to be a sight to behold. Perhaps my friend The Great and Powerful Toad is not just the lazy SOB I’d mistaken him for. Hopping up a step that’s about five times as high as you can’t be easy. And then having to do that again three more times must really be a bear. Not to mention that the last step has a lip on it, so there’s a bit of the obstacle course thing goin’ on, in addition to power and endurance. I suspect you can see why I’m filled with such admiration for the little bastard.

Actually, I’m not entirely sure why I like him so much. Is it because I’m just jealous of his carefree life? No, that would make me want to kick his ass off my porch, at least until he starts chipping in on the mortgage. Is it because he’s kinda fat and ugly and I can relate? Possibly, but I’ve never been overly fond of Danny DeVito, so that’s not likely.

Or is it just that, much as I love our neighborhood, there’s not a lot of wildlife around? Lots of birds, and people have dogs and cats but they’re not supposed to just run around, and we don’t even have squirrels here yet. We’ve got the geese but they stay down at the pond with the beavers who are destroying said pond but whom we never see. We can hear cows occasionally but an actual sighting is pretty rare. We did have a vulture walking around our yard the other day and that was quite the event…but not a terribly pleasant one. There are lots of deer but they’re almost never seen, just eating our flowers in the night and then disappearing before dawn without so much as a thank you note or an "I’ll call you later." And of course the bunny population is starting to take off, and they’re cute. But much as I like them—and, since I don’t particularly care about flowers, I do like them—they don’t quite do it for me like Toad, Destroyer of Worlds.

Why is that? Even simply taking as a given that I’m really odd, is there something else at work here? I’m not that deep, so there’s rarely an underlying meaning below the surface—with me, what you see (and hear) is pretty much what you get. Which means, yes, I really am little more than crude jokes interrupted by frequent belches.

Top Management thinks it’s because The All-Powerful Toad is the epitome of zen. He just is. He eats when he has to, he hops when he has to, he pees in your hand when he has to, but otherwise he’s perfectly content to just hang on the porch and be. When it’s pointed out to her that I’m roughly as far from being zen as Danny DeVito is from resembling Gwyneth Paltrow, Top Management insists that I admire those who are able to strip their lives down to naught but the bare essentials and be happy with that. It’s an intriguing theory but as usual I suspect she’s been hitting the crack pipe again, so on went the quest for a solution to my little query.

Finally, I came up with a possible answer. Is it that, I realized, most of the bugs that he’s able to get at night are probably those that have been singed and wounded by banging up against the red-hot lights and that we would therefore seem to share a passion for blackened, Cajun-spiced food? It’s not an obvious answer, but it seems at least the most likely, at least to me. I’m not sure it’s the right one, but just in case, I’ve already reserved a table at Chez Peterson Grenouille for tonight, and I’ll be out there next to The Toad of Toads, giving blackened, spotlight-fried luna moth a try.

Comments

[sarah sunshine]

The girls were entertained by a very large toad a few weeks ago. I found him hiding in some perennials that I was clipping. Although it would have been nice to move him to an equally shaded and bug-filled home, I couldn't resist the hour or two of uninterupted yard time I would have if I shared my find with the girls. This fella easily would have filled my hand and them some. He was kind of the toads. Since the girls were next door, I put him in a tall (+/- two feet), narrow bucket. As they were coming to see their surprise, as if on cue, Toad jumped right out of the bucket onto the driveway. We put him back and he did it again. No sweat. Completely vertical, cleared the top of the bucket with inches to spare. So, let your wife know that not only can the Toadster jump each step without difficulty, he can likely jump them all in a single hop. Happy toading.
I am curious, however, if our friend decided to head out of our neck-of-the-woods and find a more frog-friendly neighbor. Being "loved" by my daughters for a morning would make any critter hunt for a new home.

[Scott]

Every night since I wrote this piece I’ve nervously awaited the triumphant return to the front porch of Mister Toad. The first night he was particularly late and I began kicking myself for ever mentioning it and thus jinxing the entire thing. And I literally kicked myself, which was both painful and foolish-looking. Then again, that describes me pretty well.

But sure enough, he’s come back every night so far. He makes me very happy when he does. He also seems to be at least 25% bigger than he was the first night. Must be some good eatin’s.

So last night Top Management did something radical. I hate Wednesday mornings, ‘cuz it’s Trash Day. Why something as easy as getting the trash out to the curb bugs me baffles even me and yet there it is. It does. Part of it is the stress of having a deadline, I think—I hate deadlines. Thank goodness I decided to become a freelance writer. Sheesh.

Also, our trash guys sometimes come at 4:30 in the afternoon for three months, and then they’ll show up at 7:45 in the morning one week, causing us to rush around madly to get the stuff out on time or, more often, catch them as they’re on their way back up the street and beg them to stop and show pity on the poor sap who missed the Trash Deadline. I like routine. And don’t think I don’t know they’re doing all this just to screw with me.

Anyhoo, the radical thing Top Management did was to get all the trash ready last night, so I just had to wheel the thang out to the curb in the morning. Ain’t she the best. Well, I decided to follow her sterling example, and wheel the trash bin out last night, so there’d be absolutely no fuss and no muss this morn.

Imagine my shock and horror, then, to open the garage door at 10:30 last night and have a dozen tiny little toad hop into the garage. It was as if they’d been waiting there for me. They started hopping hither and yon like mad, clearly wondering what the hell had taken me so long. And I’ll tell you, chasing down a dozen tiny little toads—each about the size of a marble—is no picnic. Fast lil’ buggers.

So then I have to roll the trash bin out, but now I’m terrified of squooshing one of my ugly little friends, and big portions of the driveway are in shadow; it was like a toady obstacle course. In fact, at the last moment I saw, in the shadow of minivan, a big ol’ toad almost as large as my idol on the porch. I managed to avoid him, but coming back up the driveway I was surprised to note he was still there. I bent down to touch him to get him to jump out of the way, and he hopped like hell…straight into the garage which, mind ye, was about fifteen feet away. Why he didn’t hightail it for the grass, which was only about four feet away, is beyond me. Much as I admire The Toad, clearly I can’t yet think like The Toad.

So there I am at 10:30 at night, diving under the car, trying to avoid locking a toad in my garage for the night.

Toads. Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em, can’t hop like ‘em, can’t think like ‘em.

But you can try.