A Little Night Visitor

It's 11:20pm and I'm lying in bed almost asleep. When all of a sudden I hear a sound at the head of my bed like something jumping and landing on the floor. I reach for my headlamp (conveniently stored on the shelves at the head of my bed) and shine it towards the corner of my bed and see a dark blog jump up. This is in fact an excellent way to quickly become fully awake and alert.

And so began my late night adventure.

Now. Living next to the woods/bush (whichever term you prefer), I have grown quite used to visits from all sorts of bugs and critters. But I have yet to have a visit from anything larger than a really big praying mantis. As it was late, I wasn't sure what it was, and I was a little over my Brave Quota for the day, I decided to call in reinforcements. In the form of the college guys who live in the house next to mine. And by "next to" I mean 15 feet away. One came over, and then another. Just to make sure the situation was properly managed. 

They pulled my bed away from the wall and we saw frog chillin out in the corner. Or maybe a toad. Neither I nor they are well versed in such distinctions. They thought it was poisonous, but weren't sure. Again, tough distinctions for frog/toad novices. Better safe than sorry with these kinds of things though- I brought in a plastic bag so one of the guys could stick his hand in it and try to catch the frog. Except the little guy was too fast and the guys were too skittish. It was really a rather comical scene, the guys trying to be brave, but clearly a little nervous. Everyone in pajamas. My furniture and suitcases (usually kept under my bed) increasingly being moved and scattered around the room. 

As if that weren't interesting enough, then we added a cutlass to the mix. The guys thought we might have better luck trying to 'bonk' the frog on the head to kill it rather than catch it. I have a very nice and very borrowed-from-my-supervisor rug covering a little more than half of my floor, so I insisted that they not overly bonk the frog on the head and thereby splatter its (potentially poisonous??) guts all over said very nice and very borrowed-from-my-supervisor rug. They agreed to be careful. So. One of the guys managed to smack the frog with the (broad flat side of) the cutlass. Except it didn't die, it just kind of spewed a bit of its intestines out the side, as evidence by the red splotch in this photo:        

The hilarity continued for a few minutes as the frog hopped around the room, under my desk, and then somehow disappeared beneath all our eyes, only to reappear in the opposite corner of the room. At which point the third neighbor guy came over, and summarily took charge of the situation. He took the cutlass, walked over beside the bed, smacked it twice, and scooped the dead frog into the bag. While the other two watched and I photographed:

So that's how it's done. As the guys were walking out with the dead frog bag in hand, I said, "No wait, let me take a picture of it!" I think prior to that moment they knew I was a bit odd, but only then was the depth of my oddity solidified in their minds. I photographed the dead frog, thanked them profusely, and said goodnight.

Then I put my room back together, double checked my sheets to make sure I didn't have any additional little night visitors, and went to sleep. Blissfully uninterrupted.