Remember Fred? He’s the pretty little tree frog who visits the outside of my living room window late every evening. I love to watch him slurp up bugs in the illumination of the table lamp. He’s funny, cute and productive.
Remember the fichus tree? Yes, the very tree I nearly destroyed during my misadventures at washing windows. It still sits by the glass doors at the back of the house, soaking up sunshine and all the water we can throw at it. The poor thing is riddled with scars from the cat’s attempts at climbing.
Ah, the cat—that woe-be-gone feline, long suffering and plotting his revenge on the entire household. Fuzzball hasn’t been the same since we introduced the dog to our little family. He wants her dead and that’s no lie. One of these days, I fear the little pup will be found strung up by her ears with a snickering kitty lying in her bed.
Which brings us to Lucy. Lucy is a cute little Bichon who thinks she’s Rambo, the Terminator and Angelina Jolie all wrapped up in one cuddly package of white fluff. Her word is law and when she barks, the cat runs.
Now, the pets are evenly matched in size, if not temperament. Where Lucy is playful, Fuzzy’s hateful. Where Lucy is protective, Fuzzball is scheming. Where Lucy is a walking Hoover, Fuzzy is starving—mostly because the dog harasses all his food away from him. At any given moment there’s a new battle with the cat spitting and the dog barking and fur flying. I keep telling the pup the cat is going to get her one of these days. One fun thing about dogs is they just don’t care. When they’re right, they’re right and the world can be damned.
Okay, enough setup.
Back to Fred. I didn’t realize how many relatives a tree frog could have. When I watered the fichus today, a frog jumped out. In my house? A tree frog? How cute! Well, when I saw it, I knew I had to remove the little sucker. It doesn’t belong in my home and with the psycho pets, it didn’t stand a chance.
True to form, when I reached for it, the cat had to investigate. You heard that curiosity killed the cat? This time it nearly killed the frog and didn’t do much good for the fichus. Now, don’t get angry with the cat. He’s only doing what cats do. It’s instinct. When food hops by, you attack. That’s the law of nature. Be opportunistic.
Of course I wasn’t about to let the pampered tom make breakfast of Fred’s kin. What kind of person would I be? After all, there’s not much sport in chomping on an amphibian outside its natural habitat. So I reached for it. And it hopped. I reached again and the cat lunged.
A lunging cat is tantamount to an invitation for a bouncing Bichon. The dog lunged for the cat as the cat lunged for the frog. The frog jumped on my leg and I jumped back.
The dog began barking, the cat took off running—straight up the fichus. The fichus was ripped out at the roots—again—and the frog landed on my face.
In the melee of hissing, spitting, barking and a fair amount of screaming from yours truly, I could have sworn I heard someone yell, “Timber!” A plume of potting soil hit the ceiling and the cat landed on the dining table. The dog jumped straight upward in an attempt to bite the cat and I peeled Fred, Jr. off my face. Then the cat spied the frog in my hand.
No, it’s not what you’re thinking. Fuzzball would not dare to attack little slimy green things in my hand. But the frog saw the cat and wiggled free. It landed on top of my head and the cat was lost in the moment. He forgot—for the briefest of time—just whose head it was. He went sailing from the top of the table. I looked up in time to see a fifteen pound ball of Maine Coon fur hurdling toward my face (he used to be twenty pounds, but as I said earlier, he’s being systematically starved by the pup).
At the same time I saw him, Mr. Fuzzball caught sight of my eyes. Ever see a cat put on the brakes in mid-air? Allow me to offer you a visual: The body twists, turns, curls; the head rears back; the legs stretch out and bear down with claws out—just hoping to catch something, anything that will help it stop.
I ducked. He hit my shoulder and slammed into the floor. The dog charged, barking and snarling while the cat hissed and headed for higher ground. The frog was hopelessly tangled in my hair—and I was doing a decent amount of hissing and snarling of my own.
Finally, I had the frog in my hand. He peed all over it, made a strange croaking sound and burrowed into my fist. Lucy stood not three feet away, wagging her tail innocently as she looked up at me from the scattered potting soil on the floor. The tree lay upon a chair, its sad branches reaching as if trying to right itself. The cat growled from some unknown hiding place a few feet away.
Enter the daughter. She wanted to know what was going on. Being the farm-girl that I am, I decided to show her the frog and tell her how it manages to stick to things. “See the sticky pads on its feet?” I said. And it escaped my clutches, landing on the screen door.
The chase was on again. The cat appeared from nowhere, climbing up the new screen door with his over-sized claws. The dog grabbed a mouthful of cat tail and the frog moved higher. The tree shifted and landed on the floor, spraying the door with what was left of the potting soil. The princess ran for cover.
I slapped the dog down, clutched at cat fur with one hand and the frog with the other. Tossing the cat backward, I threw the door open and evicted Fred, Jr. before turning on my own errant animals. They both shuddered and disappeared when I screeched those fatal words, “You’re all dead!”
I managed to find the pup and toss her out the front door. With broom and dustpan in hand, I went to work on the dining room—and the tree. The stately fichus is lucky it’s not kindling. After scooping up twenty pounds of potting soil and repotting it, I pruned away the broken branches and wiped my brow.
Another tree frog jumped out. What the hell? Where are these things coming from? Of course the answer is in the over-abundance of rain we’ve had this year. This time, I scooped up the frog with both hands while simultaneously sliding the door open with my foot. I wasn’t worried about being delicate. I gave the little creature a pitch and slammed the door.
That was about two hours ago. Is it too early to break into the vanilla extract that I made last month? Or I could take a hit off the bourbon, or the scotch—maybe vodka? I know! Absinthe! That’s what I need.
I think I’ll have a talk with Fred tonight about his wayward kiddies. The next time I see one in the house, I’m going to put mini frog’s legs on the menu for supper.
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