Heartbreak and Horny Toads

Tragedy has struck our home. I'm actually feeling a little sick right now. And They don't know about it yet. They're all sleeping soundly in their beds, dreaming of motorcycles, football, and horny toads.

Speaking of horny toads, let's talk about animals for a minute. I am not what you'd consider an "animal lover". I don't hate animals, I just view them as animals. Not people. They have a place, and if they stay in it and are good little animals, we get along just fine. I've even been known to develop a fondness for good pets, like our dog Rosie, and Prissy our cat. I also feel that pets (of some type) are like a right of passage for children.

Then there are the pets I have no toleration for. For instance, if it stinks, requires live food, has a living space requiring cleaning, or provides no actual physical interaction with my children (why do people have fish??) I want nothing to do with it. Our late pac man frog (rest his stinky, worm/cricket eating, BORING, un-touchable soul) fit all these categories. Thankfully, we acquired him late in his life and he didn't last too long. When he left us for froggy Heaven, I vowed I was finished with amphibians and reptiles forever. Watching them eat is not thrilling enough to justify all the previously mentioned setbacks.

Then came the horny toad.

Last week my brother inherited a baby horny toad. We're talking infant here. Roughly the size of a quarter, he ran from any prey bigger than those tiny little sugar ants. Even I had to admit he was kind of cute in that baby-horny-toad-way of his. My brother instantly offered to give the little guy to my children. How noble of him. Couldn't he have asked the mother first? I of course, immediately stomped out all their dreams of horny-toad-ownership with some callous statement like, "Absolutely not, never ask again, we will not EVER own another frog." Within a day or two, my brother found a loophole.

"We're going camping," he innocently said. "Could you babysit the horny toad? We already showed the boys how to feed him."

What could I say? Being the nice sister I am, I could find no justifiable way out, and so I said yes. The parting words from my brother were "just keep him till the boys get bored..." Yeah. Right.

Then a surprising thing happened. I began to grow kind of fond of the itty bitty baby. He was cutish, and unlike stupid Fat Albert the pac man frog, the boys could actually handle the horny toad. And horny toads don't stink. Much to my children's delight, I decided maybe we could keep him after all.

Little Horny made his home in a small, tupper-ware type container with a little sand and a rock. To keep him away from the smallest members of our family, he was (shrewd readers will notice the use of PAST tense here) kept on top of the fridge. Just yesterday I walked by and noticed the container was too close to the edge, where it would fall if the freezer door was opened. I pushed it back and made a mental note to talk to the boys.

Today I had a baby sitter. For dinner she made my kids frozen pizza.

Later, while I was doing something REALLY important (like playing on my computer, i.e. blogging) my older boys asked where Little Horny was. A little red flag went off in my head (and was just as quickly ignored), and I sent the boys back to bed.

A little while later I went into the kitchen to hunt for a nighttime snack.

I opened the freezer.

I screamed. (Okay, I gasped. "Screamed" just sounded way more dramatic).

There, IN THE FREEZER!!! was Little Horny's House!!!

In an instant I realized what must have happened. Baby sitter opens freezer door to remove pizza. Tupper-ware type container falls to the floor. Being fifteen and just a little bit not-so-smart, baby sitter fails to realize the container IS NOT COLD and places it BACK?! in the freezer!!!

Poor, poor Little Horny. Do you think there's any chance the little guy will thaw out? It was only four and a half hours or so...

And poor, poor ME! You all must know what I'm in for tomorrow morning - a majorly loud, majorly long, majorly miserable session of much weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. I guarantee you it will not be either pretty, or peaceful in the Baxter household tomorrow morning. The dread is currently sitting in my stomach like a rock. I feel terrible.

If something like this had to happen, why couldn't it have happened to Fat Albert? Then I could have secretly rejoiced, which would have given me extra strength and stamina for the bouts of teeth gnashing. As it is, I feel terrible. He was just a baby! I actually LIKED him! Now I'll be tempted to get another one - and it probably won't be free.

So anyways, that was my stinky evening. How was yours?