What is it about frogs and their overwhelming desire to crowd the roads after a summer rain?
Are they on some hari-kari mission of death? Don’t these frogs know that the swamp is not in the middle of the highway, the middle of my driveway, or the middle of our Lanark County country roads?
Last week, when we had some steamy storms blow through here, I was bringing Blondie home from work. Chihiro had come along for the ride. The sunroof was open and Blondie and I were singing a Timbaland song. Yes, that makes me cool to some teenagers.
When I punctuated my singing with “Aaaaaa! Frogger!”, Chihiro finally asked what I meant when I said that.
I explained to her about a video game from the 80’s, whose entire purpose was to get frogs across the road safely, before they were unceremoniously smooshed under the tires of a car. By the time she grasped the concept, we had turned onto our quiet road.
I explained that we get to live the Frogger game more often than we’d like to. “See all those white dots on the road in front of us? They are all frogs.” I stopped the car so Chihiro could lean forward and see. Blondie didn’t believe me at first, and Chihiro just wasn’t getting the full picture. After all, they just look like white dots on the wet pavement – their throats exposed and gleaming in the brightness of the car’s headlights.
And since I couldn’t prove the amount of frogs by pointing at them, I did the only logical thing I could do.
I got out of the car and walked to the first frog, expecting it to jump away in fright. Nothing. I stomped my foot at the frog. Again, nothing. I jumped up and down for a minute, and heard giggles coming from the open windows of the car. Darn frog wasn’t moving. I was losing my audience, so I bent down and pushed it with my finger. Finally, the frog jumped.
Squeals from Blondie and Chihiro rose in volume as I walked to the next frog and pushed it with my finger to get it off the road. Nine frogs later, I thought I’d cleared the immediate area. But frog number ten didn’t fare so well.
I made the sign of the cross over its poor froggy soul. Blondie and Chihiro were screaming with laughter. Looking further up the road, I shut my mind to the rest of the white dots. I couldn’t save them all, even though I’d much rather they croak in the forest instead of under the tires of my car.
By the time we pulled into our driveway, our girls were a little wary of stepping on a frog. Too bad the porch lights weren’t on. And it probably didn’t help much that I kept yelling ‘frogger!’ as they negotiated the dark pathway to the front door.
But again, their hysterical screams of laughter still made it a fun memory. Well, that and hearing Chihiro holler her own ‘Frogger!’ as she pointed to a frog on the lawn the next morning. Not quite the same concept, but our lovely Japanese friend was definitely getting the hang of it.
