Frogs on Windshields

You may look at the title and think, ‘There goes The Prude, bashing nature again.’  And then The Prude steps in to plead her case, to whit:

-    Before The Prude’s various menfolk head out to mow the lawn in relentlessly neat rows, she (going with 3rd person pronouns today in honor of ‘Thursday Variety Day’) has been known to yoo-hoo and stamp around the yard, warning small toads and frogs to hie themselves away to non-grassy areas lest they be compacted, diced and spewn out for mulch.

-    In her college days, The Prude and her roommates, one soft and drizzly spring evening, took a walk down a quiet road, having heard that rain was good for the complexion and more economical than Clearasil. As we (they? they) As they moseyed along, saturating their pores, they noticed a lone toad ever so slowly trying to cross the road.  The roommates feared for the toad.  At any moment a vehicle could come along and extinguish its little life right before the open-pored coeds.  Since coeds of this type and nature Did Not Handle Toads, they took turns nudging it across the street with their late 70’s style shoes.  Somewhere between the center line and the safety of the opposite ditch the coeds noticed the toad no longer responded to their nudges. They beat a hasty retreat, leaving the warty corpse a victim of good intentions and clunky shoes.

This all should convince you that, when The Prude was driving her vehicle last night and minding her own business, looking through her own windshield, only to see a three-inch frog staring back at her, she bore it no malice.

At this point we should address with some anxiety the threat of small frogs dropping from the sky onto the windshields of the innocent.  We should, but we’ll save it for another day when The Prude is running on empty for ideas.

The frog clung to the windshield all along the 3-lane highway, adjusting its position occasionally but never taking its bulgy eyes off The Prude. It practically dared her to turn on the windshield wipers.  Whenever her hand would, of its own accord, creep toward that lever, the frog would blink at her.

The Prude and the frog rode along at this impasse all the way through the city: the frog glaring and daring, The Prude twitchy and neurotic. 

Then the duo reached a country road.  The frog’s demeanor changed.  It sniffed the air from where The Prude assumes its nostrils to be. It heard the Call of the Wild from where its ears lurked. Its muscles tensed.  So did The Prude’s.  She knew what was coming. She moaned, but to no avail.  Sneering, the frog relieved itself on the windshield. Twice.

Then, before The Prude could shout out a warning, the frog took a giant leap into the air.  From a vehicle going 57 miles an hour. Nothing was left but the trail of ick from its backside.

Somewhere, if there is an amphibian afterlife, a toad and a small frog are comparing notes on who or what done them in and how they plan to get even.  Henceforth, The Prude plans to carry an umbrella.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE PRUDE HAS INSERTED AN IMAGE!  THE FROG IN THE PHOTO IS NOT ONE SHE HAS KNOWINGLY DAMAGED, BUT IT DOES RESIDE ON HER FRONT DOOR.