Odd Days: Kissing Toads

I don't know if it's global warming or our seeping septic system but we've had an influx of toads in our neighborhood over the last few months. I am aware of this primarily because of the quantity of carcasses I see on the road when I'm running or biking. To be honest, if the carcass is fresh I hope fervently that a dog will come and eat the toad before I run by again. Otherwise I have to watch as it gets flatter and flatter until it is nothing more than a stain on the road. And I just know that every time I go by that stain, I will remember it was once a toad.

Why the affection for toads, you might ask. Well, there is a reason and here it is. Some years ago I went to India for a few months and was living (and teaching sporadically) in a women's college in Punjab. A shortage of space landed me in the green room attached to the school auditorium. The bathroom was down the hall. The first morning after my arrival I ventured into the shower. My first surprise was the lack of hot water. It was hot though so I soon settled into the cool stream. All of a sudden I saw a shape jump from the floor of the shower clear up to my nose. I screamed.

I prayed silently to myself that it was just some weird hallucination, but then it happened again. I screamed. Realizing that it probably was not a hallucination, I stepped out of the shower and braved a look-see. Yep, you guessed it. A family of toads had taken up residence in the shower. More interesting perhaps is that they never relocated. So for all the months I lived there I shared a shower with a family of toads.

I can only assume I was a toad in an earlier life or something, but my affection for the little creatures still lingers.