Rescue: free from confinement, danger, or evil.

I rescue.

I rescue kids, dogs, cats. I didn’t set out to be a rescuer, it just happened. I’ve done foster care for humans and canines and felines. After my seven year old daughter died in 1996, I was grateful for her existence and vowed that whatever was put on my porch I would take care of from that moment forward. I started doing foster care and ended up adopting a sibling pair and and then a second sibling pair. I also did some feline foster care and ended up with way too many cats.  Canine foster, same story. I always answered the call, rescuing everyone from danger and evil.

Rescue was my destiny, my  talent, my forte. Until yesterday when I literally turned my back on a creature that was sitting on my porch.

I live in a large wooded lot in Sheboygan. It is like being on vacation three hundred and sixty five days a year. I have a deer herd of about six that the woods to stand in while looking both ways before crossing the street (true story, they really really do look both ways). I have a decent-sized red fox that lays in the sun at the bottom of our lower driveway. We’ve got more turkeys sucking gravel than you can count and our woods indicate that there is quite a night life for the wildlife (based on the after-party poop we’ve found).

For a city girl like myself this is very cool in a really creepy way. I find the deer to be the most disturbing. How can something that weighs like two hundred some pounds just be roaming and reproducing? If the deer and the antelope roam, what’s next, feral cows?

After living in the woods for a few years and I thought I was learning to coincide with nature. I’ve certainly been blessed with an odd assortment of bugs in the house, not to mention the panic that comes with an open door that just screams “all mice are welcome” and we all know from watching Disney’s Rescuers that mice can read.

Yesterday, life as I knew it came to an abrupt halt. There was a four inch toad in my front hall. I thought it was eight to ten inches in diameter, but Man Across the Street indicated that it was more like four inches.

Here’s the deal, I have had a toad living on my front porch. I ignored it. I didn’t offer it food, water, shelter, not a single thing so I thought it would go away. It didn’t. If I put a bag of garbage on the front porch to take down to the trash cans, it would be under the garbage bag when I picked it up. I have a couple of vintage crocks on the front porch and it sits between the crocks, facing the yard. For me, this has been just as scary as any movie that had ever been created. I swear its unblinking eyes follow me wherever I go.

Anyway, yesterday afternoon at about 3:30 I asked my youngest daughter to bring in all the shoes from the front porch and put them in the shoe basket in the foyer. She dutifully counted eleventeen shoes and put them in the basket just like she was told, such a good girl.

Maybe ten minutes after that the boys decided to go out and shoot hoops. They dash to the shoe basket only to produce a blood-curdling, eardrum-shattering scream. MOM, THE TOAD IS IN THE HOUSE. That sneaky little amphibian must have harbored himself in a shoe or sandal knowing this was a way to get his webbed foot in the door.

First of all this scared me so much that I had to pee really bad, so I did that.  I then ordered all my humans outside to keep an eye on the toad by looking through the front door. I quickly fixed my hair just a little and sprayed on a dot of perfume and applied a dash of lip gloss. I set out to do the only thing I knew how to do in a situation like this: act pathetic and find a man to help. Sorry, but it is a true story and I must stick to the facts.

I sauntered my way across the street to the nearest home that showed any sign of life. Now this neighbor is pretty cool and laid back. I don’t know his name so I always refer to him as Man Across the Street. He’s a smoker so he is often in his garage smoking and watching television and from observing his vehicle patterns I could tell he was on vacation this week.

I sashay up to his garage and say “excuse me” and this apparently scared him as much as the toad scared me because he bolted out of his chair and stood up. Man Across the Street must have forgotten that he was in his garage smoking and watching TV wearing nothing but his unders since he is adjusting the front of them while I am trying not to look but I can’t help myself.

Man Across the Street: Hi.

Me: Hi, I hate to be such a damsel in distress but their is a giant toad in our front hall and I need to have it removed.

Still startled and adjusting, Man Across the Street: Are you sure it isn’t a snake?

Me: I am pretty sure it is a toad, a giant toad (I’m batting my eyelashes now) and this toad really needs to be leave.

Man Across the Street: If you are sure it isn’t a snake, I will help you. Let me put some real pants on and I will be right over, but if it is a snake I must leave.

Me: I’ll meet you over there.

True story people, you can’t make up a conversation like this.

Man Across the Street comes over in just a few minutes and one quick glance tells me that he does now have on real pants. I invite him in only then he can’t see the toad because it has kind of camouflaged itself in a Speedo sandal.

Man Across the Street: Where is it?

Me: Right there, he’s in the Speedo sandal by the rim of the basket.

Man Across the Street: Sure enough, at least it isn’t a snake.

I gave Man Across the Street a big Tupperware bowl to throw over the top of the basket and he heads out the front door with the basket, shoes, and toad in tow. Once outside the front door, Man Across the Street prepares to release the toad.

Me: Damn it, not so close to the front door. Let’s shoot him off to the lower woods portion.

Man Across the Street: Are there any snakes in that portion?

Me, as I start to sense a serious fear of snakes: Not that I am aware of (Man Across the Street hesitates). No, no snakes at all (I add reassuringly).

The shoe basket is now laid on its side and the toad is gently encouraged to leave by Man Across the Street continually smacking the sides and bottom of the basket. Man Across the Street points the toad towards the west so it can hopefully understand that it needs to live on a different property.

I thank him profusely yet appropriately and offer to walk him home. I don’t know why I did that, he seemed weak from the anticipation of snakes I guess. He reassured me he was fine.

I re-enter my now toad free home only to find a big puddle of toad urine. What the #&*%? I carefully fold a piece of Scooby Doo paper toweling into fourths to absorb the urine. Apparently the toad got the pee scared out of him, too.

If rescue means to free from confinement, danger, or evil I may have still done my best. That toad would have had no quality of life with our family. Yes, he had been confined to our home and was definitely in danger of being stepped on which may have been interpreted as evil.

I did see my way through this and realized that I did not fail to rescue, but successfully re-homed the toad.

Now for authenticity, here is a picture that I took of the toad and watch how his creepy eye follow you no matter where you are in the room.

My staff informed me that you left a comment on this post and it needed to be addressed personally.

I remember it all. Even more than you do.

Roses on Valentine’s Day, always. Your smile made you look like a school boy but your bad ass silver Porsche said otherwise.

Lunches on Tuesday, yes. Remember when I showed up at your store, confessing everything and you thought you could fix it by making a confession of your own? Apples and oranges, Tommy. Apples and oranges.

Let me win in card games? No. But remember when I was encouraging you to institute the asterisk that became GFA?

Better yet, remember that one time I was really drunk? Sure you do, it was after a Rotary Christmas party and we were at the table with four other couples and I had a revelation … I clearly stated, “I am the only one at this table that hasn’t slept with Mary Jane.”

This was the same night I robbed Steve the Banker during Liar’s Dice. Depth Charge, baby. I don’t think I’ve played Liar’s Dice since that night but I can’t think about any game of dice without seeing Mary Jane clenching a quarter between her front teeth. Oooh, and before we had dinner do you remember when you twirled Lizzy Belle with so much enthusiasm she fell flat on her ass on the dance floor. Gotta love a live band. And you’ve got to love Lizzie. She popped right up, danced some more, and never skipped a beat of the song she was singing.

Of course, I remember our pact and I will always be your Care Bear, didn’t we just enter our third decade of friendship? And your Happy New Year’s message from Champ will never, ever be deleted from my cellphone. Can’t share it with anyone, but it’s too sweet to delete. In fact, I was just telling a friend about you a few days ago. Remember the time I asked you, “So what’s the point of anything happening in the woods if no one ever knows about it?” You said, what happens in the woods stays in the woods. My friend disagreed with you. Don’t make me choose between the two of you.

I know why you are here, Tom. This is about Elvis, isn’t it? It’s been a few years since you’ve sang Blue Christmas in my ear. You were so close, your whispered singing gave me goosebumps.  Your rendition of A Very Merry Karen Carpenter Christmas, not so much. And now Elvis just celebrated his if I would have been alive, I’d be seventy-five birthday. Time flies.

Remember when you bought the vintage Elvis book? You wrote a beautiful dedication in the front of the book, pretending you were Elvis revealing for the first time that I was LisaMarie’s sister.

And speaking of books, I know you want to borrow my book for Lizzie. Go ahead, she’s not going to read it anyway. You can borrow it and can make notes in the margins. Hell, use a highlighter if you must. I’ll consider your edits.

Welcome back.

Fifty-one year old me: What? How do you know?

Six year old daughter: Actually, it was Monday afternoon.

She was right.

I did spill chocolate pudding.

On Monday afternoon.

“Some things never change,” thought Barbie. “You would think after all these years Ken and Alan would stop exposing their junk,” she laughed heartily recalling old times. Of course, the old times were before the incident. It seems like just yesterday when Alan injured his knee during the hostile war between Mattel and Colorforms.

Even before the guys met Barbie, Ken was the brain and Alan was the brawn. Decades had past since what they now called “the incident” and slowly the dynamics of their relationship became reversed. No longer able to play tennis or scuba dive, Alan’s role was relegated to more physically simple tasks such as surgery or accounting. Ken, still refusing to wear pants during any circumstances, came up with the idea of Dumpster Diving for spare parts.

As Ken and Alan revealed their latest find to Barbie, they started singing in perfect unison,

She’s got legs, she knows how to use ‘em
She never begs, she knows how to chose ‘em
Were holdin’ legs, wonderin’ how to use ‘em
I’d love to get behind ‘em
Hey Barbie would you mind ‘em
She’s my baby, she’s my baby
Yeah, it’s alright.

Barbie laughed out loud as they presented the bendable legs. “Those are Francie‘s legs!”

“We don’t care who they came from, Barbie,” said Alan. “For years I listened to you tell me to grow a pair. I know you were referring to my junk but I had a lot of time to think while we were in separate totes. I knew if I ever got out of the storage unit I planned to find a pair and ask you to be mine. When Ken suggested Dumpster Diving and I saw the legs, well the plan took on a life of it’s own.”

Unable to keep her mouth shut any longer, Tressy interrupted the conversation. “I have alopecia,” she sobbed. “Did your Dumpster Diving get you any closer to helping me?”

Barbie sneered. “It’s always about you, isn’t Tressy.”

Tressy lowered her eyes in shame, knowing that this was Alan’s time to be optimistic.

Barbie’s slightly moldy face broken into a grin.

“I did a little Dumpster Diving of my own, Tressy,” said Barbie as she broke into song.

I’ve got heads, you’ll know how to use ‘em
I’ve got heads, juts try not to lose ‘em
I’d love to let you have ‘em
Girl, you’ve got to have ‘em
These heads are alright.

And for the four friends, separated for decades in the storage unit, it was as though they had always been together. They laughed with gusto, reliving old times and looking forward to new times with better body parts. Barbie vowed to share Ken and Alan with Tressy.

Tressy wasn’t thinking about their reunion or the generous gift of spare heads and attractive wigs. She was wondering if anyone would notice what happened during their years apart. This was worse than Alan’s knee, worse than Barbie’s mold tinged face, more disgraceful than Ken’s diminutive package. This was about the damage caused by Brainsuckers. “How long before anyone notices”, wondered Tressy.

Do you want the story continued?