Jerry: Hey.Me: Hey. What do you know about frogs?
Jerry: They start out as tadpoles.
Me: Do they sleep with their eyes open.
Jerry: They have a lot of eyelids, so probably not. What would be the point?
Me: That's right. You're right.
Jerry: Why?
Me: Well, there's this frog on my sidewalk and he's not moving and the cats are milling around and I walked right past and he hasn't moved and I think he might be dead, but he's just sitting there, like, not mauled. So maybe he had a heart attack. But his eyes are open. I thought maybe he was asleep.
Jerry: Brynna will get him.
Me: Brynna's in bed.
Jerry: Well, just pick it up.
Me: See, I thought of that. And I would, but what if it's dead? I have this thing about touching dead things and I don't really want to be holding it if it's dead. But I also don't want it to be sitting here all sad and dead when the girls get up. And I have no idea what one would do with a dead frog.
Jerry: What does it look like?
Me: Well, it's brown and it has ridges on it's back.
Jerry: It's a toad. Totally different species from a frog.
Me: Okay. So do toads sleep with their eyes open?
Jerry: I don't know. But they're lazy.
Me: I don't think this is an issue of being lazy, but an issue of a completely abnormal lack of fear from a prey animal. Maybe it's rabid. I'm kidding.
Jerry: It's probably fine.
Me: Okay, I guess I'll just leave it alone.
A couple of points about the above exchange:
- I never realized that I don't like to touch dead things until I was throwing sticks at a toad.
- When did I become the woman standing on her sidewalk in the middle of the night, worrying about toads and their state of liveliness?
- Schrodinger should have just put a toad on a sidewalk, because it seriously existed in both states for me.
- The toad was fine, by the way. About an hour later, I took out the trash and he was still sitting there, not moving and looking kind of inanimate, but in a totally different place. This morning he was totally gone. Toadally gone. Forgive me.
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