Some people say that you can tell a lot about a man by the way he treats animals. If this is true, then my brother is a real gem of a man.
After a family trip, his daughter set a bag full of camping gear down on the ground. The bag started unexpectedly moving; since tents don’t normally move around, they investigated. Upon opening the bag, they discovered a large toad that had been inadvertently packed up with the gear and transported from the camp site. They saved the toad from certain starvation in the bag by releasing him next to the garage, problem solved… at least one would have thought…
Later that evening, my brother heard a toad calling. It wasn’t the normal happy trill; rather it was a loud distressed sound. At first he ignored it, but the call persisted so he went to investigate. He walked towards his garage and the call stopped, but as he walked away the toad started his cry back up. He walked back towards the garage and the call stopped again. This continued a few more times making it impossible for him to locate the toad. He stopped and talked to his wife; out of the corner of his eye he caught a movement by his metal toolbox on the ground. There was the toad… stuck halfway in and halfway out of a little hole in the side of the toolbox. Hmmm, I think we’ve figured out how this guy got into the tent bag. My brother helped the fat toad out of the hole and he hopped off no worse for the wear; hopefully a little smarter about trying to squeeze through little holes.
The next day, my brother was working in his garage. He was trying to straighten a metal part, but needed something solid to work as an anvil. On the ground was a old steel metal rim, perfect for the job. He laid the part across the rim and took his large hammer and wailed away at the part, slowly but steadily straightening it out. The sound of metal on metal rang loudly through the air as he hammered on the part. Finally satisfied, he decided to move the rim into the garage. When he lifted it up, he was shocked to see that same toad. He’d been under the rim the entire time he’d been hammering on the part. He was pretty surprised that the toad didn’t have his front feet over his ears, which had to be still ringing. Once again, he moved the toad to a safer location.
One would have thought this would be the end of the toad’s adventures, but alas, the very next day my brother hears the loud distressed call again. This time, the hapless toad kept yelling so was much easier to find. My brother located him under some bushes, with a snake hanging onto one of his legs trying to swallow him. He saved the toad once again and his dog excitedly attacked the snake and killed it.
My brother laughs about the toad and says that he’s probably thinking, “Take me away from this crazy place and back to where I came from!” It took awhile, but the toad seemed to have learned not to get himself into anymore predicaments, as there hasn’t been any more loud calls for help.
