11 May 2003 ~ From Scuba Gear to Teddy Toad...

Yesterday started out sucking. Jake and I were aroused from a sound sleep by a stark raving lunatic ranting about scuba gear... (That would have been Jake's dad, who is only a stark raving lunatic if you get him talking about the civil war, or scuba gear, at either of which times, he sort of acts rabid: friendly, but rabid...) So, still mostly asleep, we trudged to the car to go to the Big Scuba Gear Sale.

Jake's dad set up a chair outside the Big Scuba Gear Store, as if he were perhaps waiting for Star Wars tickets, and proceeded to wait for the doors to open. Jake and I went back to sleep in the car.

Around noon, Jake said he had a bad headache, and I was just irritable from having only gotten four hours of sleep. We were both cranky. We argued. We made faces at each other. We sort of grumbled, and used excessive melodrama in our interpersonal relation.

...And then, miraculously, everything just sort of got better. Jake said his head felt better, and I felt a little less like tearing somebody's guts out, and a grand time was had by all. So we went to the casino, won forty-five bucks, and, with no small amount of delight, were about to go home...

...when, out of nowhere, there hopped a little brown toad.

I have this thing about squishy and/or slimy animals. I like them, don't get me wrong. I'd probably cry if somebody ran over that sweet little toad. But I'll be damned if I was going to actually touch it.

I decided that the toad needed a human shield. It was, after all, in the middle of a quasi-busy parking lot. I thought perhaps I could guide the toad, while guarding it against imminent smushing, toward some grass...

The toad freaked out. It crapped all over the pavement. It continued crapping all over the pavement. Every time it hopped, it crapped. It was the grossest thing. This made me even less pleased about the prospect of picking it up.

Jake, tired of watching his fiancée stand in the middle of a parking lot, risking life and limb so as to avoid touching a sweet little toad, came over to play the hero.

I thanked him with a kiss. The toad thanked him by crapping in his hand...

...which he wiped on me.

Teddy Toad (yes, I named the damn toad) hopped happily off into the grass, Mr. Jensen had a Big Pile of Scuba Gear, Jake went home and played a role-playing game, and I finished off my homework. All was peaceful and right with the world.

~Helena*