The Toad

There is a toad that seems to be frequenting my break area at work. I saw him for the first time last week. I opened the door and there he was. Just sitting there like he had been waiting on me. He looked up at me. I talked to him and told him what a pretty frog he was since I tend to talk to things that usually don't talk back. I told him I wished I had some big fat crickets for him to eat. I've seen him almost every night since. May or may not be the same one each night... but I like to think it is.

He made me think back to a random day about 15 years ago during one of my son's practices on his pee-wee baseball team. He was playing outfield... which included dancing around, playing in the dirt, yelling across the field to a friend... pretty much anything aside from watching what was going on, which, for me, was SO funny to watch. Because all of the boys this age would do this. This particular evening, my son came running off of the field because he found a toad. And then it became our "pet" toad. We had an aquarium and we bought live crickets from the feed store so he could eat.

I'm not sure how long we had that thing. I don't even remember his name, if we even named it. But one day my son decided that it was time for him to go back out into the world and on one of my parents excursions, they took the frog and set him free.

I hate the way that getting older makes you forget so many memories. Like a pet frog's name. My son would travel with my parent's in their RV when he was younger and I can't remember if he went on that trip with them to set the frog free. Something in my aging brain mass is telling me he did.

Forgetting such precious memories makes me sad. But having a silly toad remind me of such things makes me happy. And the only time I realize I have forgotten something is when I remember it... or most of it.