Scary Frog

Saturday, September 10, 2022

Oh why, oh why, oh why? Why are the pool frogs so scary?

I didn’t even know I was afraid of frogs. I don’t think I used to be afraid of frogs. Our first summer here, we had frogpocalyse – we pulled over 500 dead little frogs out of the pool. FIVE HUNDRED! We got to more than 500 even after the first couple of days of not counting, so it was way more than 500. I wasn’t terribly afraid of little dead frogs; I helped fish them out every morning. (We did try to not have them be dead in our pool, but were not very successful.)

But now? I am freaking insane. If there is a frog in the cover channel (like in the picture), I can’t swim. I have to get him out of the channel and scooped out of the pool. Because I am afraid he is going to get me. GET ME! What does that mean? I have no idea.

Keith just came by and said, “Are you going to tell them that frog is 1 inch across?” I absolutely snapped at him, “That frog is TWO INCHES ACROSS.” My God. We are talking SCARY FROGS.

One day last week, I checked for frogs (in pool; in channel) and all was well. I was looping, and suddenly (SUDDENLY AND OUT OF NOWHERE) a dead frog was touching me. I got out of the pool so fast you would be impressed. Then I couldn’t find it. It disappeared. Then I thought I was crazy. (Which is not off the table.) The jet thingys were making the top of the water all wavy and I couldn’t see to the bottom, so Keith had to come out to calm the water down. Neither of us could see a dead frog. I VERY CAUTIOUSLY put on my snorkle mask (goggles were insufficient) and carefully looked around under the water.

The thing about pool water is that it’s pretty hard to hide in it. It’s easy to look at every inch of the pool. Still, I spent minutes under water (snorkle) looking ABSOLUTELY EVERYWHERE. No dead frog. I was very confused and not able to figure out how I had SEEN a creepy dead frog and it had TOUCHED me, and now it was gone. When I finally came up, Keith was calmly skimming a few leaves off the surface. I announced I was crazy. He said, “No. There was a dead frog in the skimmer. I tried to tell you, but you can’t hear underwater.”

Before swimming at 6am on Wednesday, I skimmed all the leaves (to make sure they were not dead frogs pretending to be leaves). If a leaf comes into my sight while I am swimming, I jump a mile. CRAZY, I admit. There was one leaf on the bottom, about in the middle of the pool. I knew it was a leaf, but I had to scoop it up, because it would pretend to be a dead frog and scare me if I didn’t. I had to get in the pool to reach it. I got it on the first scoop and brought it up and IT WAS A DEAD FROG! Obviously, I screamed. (I’m a screamer.) It was 6:05am and I am outside screaming. Apparently, the neighbors didn’t care, because no one came to rescue me. I am glad. That would have been mortifying (note to self: if actually being attacked, scream a lot more).

I hate frogs so much.