Freddie the Frog

Hi, my name is Stacie and I am not a pet-lover.

This may seem cold-hearted, (I have no problem with other people's pets - I really loved our old neighbor's dog Riley - I just don't really want one in my house until my kids can take better care of themselves) but it’s not personal – it’s completely practical and logical.

Practicality:

I am allergic to cats and most dogs. This means that I don’t enjoy the consequences of most animal encounters, so I avoid them.

Logic:

Animals = mess, mess = enemy, therefore animals = enemy. (it's an occupational hazard as a mom/housekeeper to have a desire to eradicate the source of a mess; I can't get rid of my kids, but . . . you see where I'm going)

Darren's with me on this, too. Growing up on a farm has made him see animals as functional - they all had a purpose (cats kill mice, cows give milk, chickens give eggs, whatever), plus you can't get attached when the animals die at regular intervals. (Some day I'll recount our experience when we were visiting the farm and they slaughtered a cow. ) Anyhoo, my non-animal-lover status coupled with Darren's functional view of animals (companionship isn't enough; they have to pull some weight) leads to circumstances rather unfriendly for pets in our house. I guess we're just plain old meanies.

I only explain this because I think my anti-pet sentiments have created a frenzied pro-pet environment . Perhaps our attempts to postpone the acquisition of a family pet have caused our children to exhibit such enthusiasm around little animals that it's possibly dangerous. And that brings us to this:

Our cute little neighbor boy, Smith - Dane's partner in crime, went on a walk and found a frog. His cute family left town this weekend and let us care for the frog while they were gone. The boys were, needless to say, THRILLED! Darren was not. He was mandating the application of toxic levels of hand sanitizer at every turn, but the boys didn't care. They manhandled that thing constantly, obviously putting him on a motorcycle and a little car and dancing him around all over like the performing frog from the old school Looney Tunes.

I just knew he was gonna croak (hee hee) from the overload, but he's still hoppin'. They christened him "Freddie the Frog"and they're gorging themselves on the fun of having a pet. Truthfully, I can tell they adore this little frog, but they treat it like a toy not a living thing - and that's a wee bit scary. I've given them the countdown. We're releasing him for FHE tomorrow night. Hopefully he'll still be alive amd can return to his family!

Please don't report us to PETA.