When naming your frog...

It is not a little known fact that I love animals, and always have. For example: my first word was “doggie”. While I am no longer a strict vegetarian, when I was, my Dad said he’d known since I was little that I was going to eventually be a herbivore because I neither liked nor understood the meat eating habits. Also, I have always had an uncanny way with animals, and I think it comes from my self sacrificing empathy. (Although, my current dogs may tell you differently. But anyone who has ever had a gaggle of bird dogs will know what I mean when I say that they are energetic, and shit heads. And sometimes energetic shit heads.) That being said, here is The Tragic Story of George the 10th, and His Untimely Demise.

From the age of about 5 to 9 I lived in Charlotte, North Carolina. It was an impossibly humid place to grow up, and because of the humid climate it was filled with all sorts of interesting flora and fauna. The house that we lived in on Elm street (right around the same time the “Nightmare on Elm Street” movies came out-took me about 3 years to fall asleep after I accidentally saw a trailer on tv) had a yard that backed right up to a wooded area. “The Woods” is what the kids in the neighborhood called them, and they were teeming with all kinds of birds, squirrels, bugs and any type of creepy crawly thing you can imagine (and some you cant).

I loved living in the middle of all this ecosystem activity, and would spend almost all day outside watching the birds, and following bunny tracks. My favorite thing to do (other than spinning in circles while singing) was to catch frogs and name them. I’d catch one, keep it in a jar until I could decipher its personality and give it a good name. Then, once it was properly named I would send it on its hoppy way, feeling good that I had just helped that poor nameless animal feel loved and find its purpose. (Please don’t try to psychoanalyze that…it’ll get you nowhere. I’ve tried.)

The frogs were always around, but especially after it rained the ground would be littered with them. (It is also important to note that I would scream in the car if we tried to pull in our driveway and I hadn’t yet had my chance to try to clear it of any and all frogs by stomping and waving my arms. The ones that got squished after my heroic efforts were the stupid ones, and therefore I chalked it up to Natural Selection.) So one drizzly afternoon I was in my normal routine of catching frogs, naming them things like “Hopper”, “Lefty”, and “Jennifer” when I stumbled upon the most beautiful snail I had ever seen. It was crawling on a mushroom, had a round shell and the coloring was iridescent or mother-of-pearl with a blue hue. I picked it up by the shell so as not to get slimed and ran to put it in the empty aquarium my mother kept on our back porch so that I wouldn’t bring things like that inside.

The snail was beautiful, but after a while it was boring. It did only snaily things, like sliming the glass and crawling up leaves. When I decided to try to find more, I was rewarded by finding 9 others, very similar in coloring and all equally beautiful. Because they were all so similar but majestically beautiful, I decided to name them all George, and give them number variations 1-10. (George the First, etc etc etc) I was very proud of my beautiful George collection, and twirled around the yard, singing an Ode to George that I was making up on the spot, so you know it must have been good. Right when I had finished my last stanza devoted to George, my Dad came out to the back porch, and probably said “Whatcha doin, Punkin?” I went running up the steps to tell and show him the story of the Georges (and probably sing him my Opus) and half way across the porch I felt what can only be described as a squicrunchish. I froze. In horror, I looked under my right Jelly shoe, knowing what was going to be there, but hoping it was not true. There under my pink glittery Jelly was a squished snail. I ran over to the aquarium to count my Georges to see if the one I had squcrunished had been mine, and found that yes, one was missing.

As a 6 year old, and having never lost a loved one yet, I was devastated. I wept uncontrollably for hours. Yes, it is likely that I was tired and hungry from having been outside all day. And yes, crying over squished snail seems now a little silly. “But,” as I explained to my totally confused Dad, “George the 10th was my favorite. I had high hopes for him….and then I KILLED HIM!” I made my Dad get all the other snails out of the deatharium (I now saw it as) and set them free in the Woods where I wouldn’t be able to slaughter any more of them.

I cried as I said goodbye to my Georges, but I learned something important that day. Always put a lid on your aquarium. Or maybe it was to never name anything if you couldn’t be trusted not to kill it.

scratcher ticket idea:

Here it is: a picture of feet with differently painted toe nails. You scratch a couple of the nails to reveal a prize amount underneath.

The game is called: "YOU PICK COLOR!"