Growing Up "Country"

I grew up in a small town out in the sticks.  The kind of place where it took twenty minutes to get to a road that wasn't made of dirt and gravel...  Where everyone knew everyone and the majority of the town was comprised of three main families.  Chances are, you or your best friends were related to at least one of them.  Country living had its perks, and I wouldn't change a thing about growing up in a small town, but there were times when the "city girl" of my early childhood proved that she was still alive and kickin' in me.

It happened one afternoon when I was in college.  My parents had left that morning to go out of town for the week, and I had come to spend the weekend at the house so my 17-year-old sister wouldn't be alone.  I remember it clearly...  I was in the living room when Christy came running out of the bathroom.

"Oh my gosh!  You have GOT to go look in the toilet!!!"

My first reaction was to look at her as if she had lost her mind.  "Aren't you a little old for that, Christy?"  I mean, toddlers are all about having people look at what they've done in the potty, but Christy was 17-years-old!  I told her I'd take her word for it.

"No!  I'm serious!  You have got to go look in the toilet."

Source

I rolled my eyes and grudgingly made my way into the restroom.  The lid was down, and I just knew she was playing a horrible joke on me at this point.  I looked at her and ever-so-slowly lifted the lid when I saw exactly why she came running out of the bathroom in a frenzy.  Spread out along the inside of the toilet bowl was a Gigantic Toad of Massive Proportions!  (If I knew the HTML to make that statement blink in neon colors, I would do it in order to stress the seriousness of the situation.)  I swear, the thing was huge!  And I just knew he was coming after us.

"City Girl" let out a shriek that would call dogs, slammed the lid back down, and if I remember correctly, put something on top of it in order to prevent the massive beast from opening the lid and getting loose in the house.  Then Christy asked me what I was going to do about it.

"What I'm going to do about it?!?  Why me?!?  You found it!!!"

"You're the oldest."  (Figures she would have chosen this exact moment to solidify my place of authority over her. ;-)

My first thought was to call my grandparents.  They lived across the street and had chickens and horses and stuff, so they were more "country" than we were.  But they weren't there!!!  I will admit that I was highly tempted to call my parents and have them come home.  They hadn't been gone that long.  It wouldn't shorten their trip too much, right?  But I decided to be a grown-up and find a solution to our predicament on my own.

I called 9-1-1.

Yep.  That's right!  I called 9-1-1 because there was a massive amphibian in my commode.

Okay, so I didn't actually dial "9-1-1."  I called the police station dispatch office.  My best friend was the dispatcher there (which also meant he was the 9-1-1 dispatcher), and I knew he could handle any emergency that was thrown his way.  Hence, my call to 9-1-1...

"You have to help us, Tom!!!"

Tom put on his "calm, professional 9-1-1 dispatcher voice" and tried to talk me down from my panic attack.  Although, to this day I can still hear the laughter in his voice.  He was kind and didn't laugh outright though, so for that, I am thankful.  And I am even more thankful for what he did next.  He called his younger brother and had him drive the 20 minutes to our house in order to save us from the Gigantic Toad of Massive Proportions.

Source

When Eric pulled up the drive, Christy and I went running out to meet him.  I'm certain we were falling all over ourselves with cries of gratitude.  Our hero had come to save us!!!  Eric, bless his heart, did his best to stifle his chuckling as well and set out to remove the monster from our home.

We followed him into the bathroom.  We didn't necessarily want to have contact with the beast, but we wanted to make sure that no harm would come to him as well.  (We're compassionate like that ;-).  We prepared ourselves, and Eric opened the lid.

You could have heard crickets chirping it was so silent in that bathroom.

Sitting on top of the toilet seat, having made his way from inside the toilet bowl, was a teeny tiny little frog about the size of a quarter staring up at us with his super cute itty bitty little eyes.

Huh...  How 'bout that?

"He looked so much bigger before...  He's kind of cute!"  Christy and I proceeded to talk to the adorable little froggy.  "Hi, little froggy!  How cute are you, little froggy?!?"  Poor Eric just stood there shaking his head in disbelief.  "Do you still want me to take him outside," he asked us.  Um, yeah!  Little Froggy might be cute and all, but I still don't want him in my toilet!

So Eric picked up Little Froggy, carried him out the front door, and off of the patio where he leaned down to release him.  Christy and I quickly suggested he maybe take him a wee bit farther away from the house.  Little Froggy was clearly a smart one.  If he was able to find his way inside once, we wanted to make it a little bit more difficult for him to find his way in again.  Eric humored us and took our new amphibious friend into the pasture.  He managed to maintain his composure and not laugh at us, but I can only imagine the conversation that he and Tom must have had after he had left!

I no longer live in the country, but I do still check my toilet before sitting down.  Some things you just don't get past.  And a Gigantic Toad of Massive Proportions in your potty is one of them.  :-)