March 30, 2009
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The Frogs are Dead
I don’t know if you have ever let someone else’s pet die, but let me tell you, it is a terrible feeling. After finding out it had happened, it felt like I was a rookie pilot on the Death Star, and I had accidentally leaned on the main button and blew up a planet.
My duty was simply to spray the cage once a day so it would stay moist. Sound simple enough? Ah, but then you profoundly underestimate the ability of my mind to quickly and indelibly misplace extremely important information.
For example, just yesterday I was leaving the house, but then I ran back in to see if the back door was locked. It was indeed locked, but while glancing at it I noticed how filthy it was as well. So I decided to clean it immediately, which meant I opened it so I could clean both sides of the glass. I then left, forgetting to lock it again, and thus in total had gone to check if it was locked, which it was, and then unlocked it, and left with it unlocked. This is the sort of mind we are dealing with here.
My friend David came over late in the week and was looking around upstairs, asking, ‘Is this Alec’s room?’ It had been four days since I had sprayed the frogs. I began answering ‘Ye-’ but all in one moment reality crashed down on me like someone opening the blinds to reveal the sunrise in the morning. I ran upstairs and, sure enough, the frogs were dry and shriveled statues, dead as ducks. David assured me, ‘No, no, they’re not dead!’ and then poked one with a stick, which made its stiff, dead cadaver move all at once, grossly confirming the extent of its deadness.
For two days I writhed in fear and mental agony. My bad memory has certainly put a price tag on life, from forgetting about parking meters to library videos to school fees, but never had something like this happened. I sat and wandered around in a dazed stupor, my mind in a quiet panic, for two days, wondering what sort of reaction there would be when they came back from vacation and found out that I had killed their frogs. Perhaps the child loved these frogs more than anything, or they were rare frogs from Asia, or they were part of a yearlong school project which he could not fail, or he had got them for Christmas.
Fortunately, I found out yesterday, people do not really care about frogs all that much. In fact, I’m pretty sure coming home to find all the cereal gone may have elicited a more emotional reaction than hearing that the frogs died. I am now a free man.
‘Although,’ Brian said facetiously to me as I was about to drive away, ‘if it had been the dogs, that would have been a different story.’
Comments (12)
Haha Yeah… so we totally have the same sort of mind. I do those kinds of things all the time. I’m not kidding. I understand your frustration and the feeling of panic because I’ve done things like that all too often. :/
Sorry about the frogs, but I’m glad they didn’t kill you.
Random fact: Do you know why you have to spray frogs and reptiles?
(Besides the whole “stay moist” thing)
They actually lick the water off themselves and thats how they drink water. So without the water on their skin, its like us never drinking water and we’d dry up as well.
Random fact. Didn’t know if you knew. I found it fascinating when I learned it.
I’m a dork and love all types of animals.
~Mandy
OH, i would have been just as afraid as you were! I have had my own pets die but never someone elses.
I guess it’s a good thing people realize that frogs don’t live forever. Like most small animals they only hang around for a little while, did they ask you to take care of the dogs too? Did you remember to give them food and water?
What kind of frogs were they?
I’m a dork too and frogs used to be my favorite animal…err creature.
I would have been devastated a couple years ago if I had had pet frogs that got shriveled. =D hehe.
@Linley_K -
Um . . . hmm, green? LOL, I think one was a ‘treefrog.’ Something makes me think that isn’t a specific type, since there are probably lots of frogs that live in trees. But that’s all I remember them saying about it.
@kooky4Christ -
Wow. That makes more sense now, I suppose. I dehydrated them to death. Man, that’s even worse.
But I don’t see how this works – their tongue reaches all over their body? Seems a sort of roundabout way to drink something. Takes out the middle man, I suppose.
@angeltears2431 -
Haha, yes yes I remembered the dogs. That’s probably why I forgot about the frogs, because of all the attention the dogs got. I was thinking about saying that the frogs ate the dogs when they came home, but eventually I realized I only liked that suggestion because it rhymed. Other ideas were better – like buying hundreds of frogs and letting them all over the house and then saying, ‘Your frogs are around here somewhere, I just dunno which they are.’ Sadly, those were the most plausible suggestions we had.
I remember when I found my 15 year old turtle dead in a filthy tank. It happened so suddenly. I buried him right in front of a small pine tree.
The Frogs ate the dogs?! Either those are some really little dogs or so really huge frogs. LOL I don’t know what i would have done. I’m just glad everything worked out for you.
@StrokeofThought -
Sorry, didn’t mean to make you feel worse! I know that they do lick it off their bodies but I don’t know anything more than that, sorry. lol
Hmm, reminds me of the time I was lizard-sitting for my sister while she was away at church camp one summer. I hated that stupid lizard, but I took awesome care of it, including feeding it those nasty meal worms. Blech, I shudder to think of it. I even cleaned out the aquarium she kept it in.
And do you know what happened then? She returned from camp, and PROMPTLY forgot all about her percious little nasty lizard. A month later I went into her room for something, and there was a fossilized lizzard sitting on a still plugged in warming rock.
Don’t feel too bad, chances are, the frogs would have been forgotten sooner than later anyway. Life has a funny way of doing that.
@show_me_your_glory -
She let a whole lizard die?? Wow – aren’t those really big and cool? You can catch a frog in the sewer if you want, so lizards seem to be a little more important.
Good job, I think I’ll steal a bit from your playbook next time I’m in charge of someone’s reptile/amphibian.
What a relief! And a great story.