Another Tiny Tragedy

I'm just not sure I have the emotional stamina to handle much more frog drama. And yet the saga continues. This evening I was on the back patio, repotting some herbs Bob brought home yesterday. They'd been sitting outside in an open plastic bag since. The sage went well. Nothing unusual with the oregano either. But when I turned the peppermint out of its plastic pot, a frog came with it.

"What are you doing in there?" I asked it. "You should be in the front-porch fountain with your friends." The frog didn't answer of course, but I think it understood, because it allowed me to catch it and deposit it in the fountain, where it took a quick dip, then climbed up on the rim and sat there, breathing very fast.

I left it to recover from its adventure, went back to my pots and stuffed the empties in the plastic bag they'd come in. Just as I started to toss the whole wad into the trash, I felt the bag move in my hand. It couldn't be! But yes, there was a frog in the bag. I tried to get a fix on him and discovered he had a friend! A little incredulous now, I made a second trip to the fountain and dumped in both of the bagged frogs. One seemed happy enough in the water; the other immediately leaped out onto the porch wall and stuck there. To each his own.

Back again to the patio, where the herbs were now nicely bunched in two big, heavy pots, which I thought needed a little rearranging. As I pulled one in front of the other, a fourth frog flipped out from somewhere underneath and landed on its back, one tiny front leg mangled and dangling. Even after managing to right itself, it looked a little crumpled. This struck me as a horrific development, even worse than finding a flattened frog in the hinge of the front door Saturday morning. That frog at least went instantly. This frog was irreparably wounded and probably dying a miserable death. That is, if frogs experience pain.

I wasn't sure about this. I tried to think back to college zoology class, which unfortunately involved the dissection of quite a few frogs, mostly pre-deceased and pickled. But in one lab session, we were supposed to take a pair of scissors and cut off the top of a living frog's head, right through the hinge of its jaw. I couldn't do it of course; my lab partner had to take over. Afterwards, the poor creature continued to hop around, apparently oblivious to its mortal injury. This barbaric exercise was intended to demonstrate something unusual and, I think, primitive about the way a frog's brain works, something I forgot immediately after finals and never really needed to know anyway. Until now, 34 years later.

Frogs do have nerves; I was sure of that much. We had to find them in our pickled projects, woven in amongst other inner frog parts. But did our hapless, headless frog victim feel pain? It didn't seem like it. The whole point of the experiment was that the frog continued to act fairly normally, at least until it died, which, blessedly, happened fairly quickly.

I could only hope now that my tiny victim didn't feel as bad as he looked. I briefly entertained the thought of taking him to a veterinarian, but in all seriousness couldn't think of anything to do for him except carry him to the fountain and slip him gently into the water. But he couldn't swim very well, and I was afraid he was going to drown, so I skimmed him out and left him sitting on the porch, looking almost okay except for that one sad little leg. I tried to convince myself that he was going to recover, that his bad leg would simply dry up and fall off, that a three-legged frog could still have a good life. But the truth is I feel rotten.

I remember finding that first little frog in our fountain. Was it only last week? Such a happy, innocent moment. Since then, despite all my warm, fuzzy feelings toward the frogs, I have managed to taint the entire experience by mindlessly causing the death of one little friend and the mutilation of another. Now I'm hesitant to close a door, move heavy objects or even take an unstudied step for fear of smushing someone else. Just imagine how paranoid the frogs must be.