NEWS TRANSCRIPT (Farmingdale, New Jersey) 17 September 08 A sister's love, and a bucket of toads (Lori Clinch)
Motherhood. It's certainly not for the faint of heart.
Over the years, I've watched our boys cover themselves in mud for no apparent reason. I've seen them chase birds across the yard, throw rocks at the sky and work tediously and continuously to develop a complicated system of highways in the alley.
Then there are the snakes, the toads and the bugs. Things that creep, crawl and bite seem to make their way into the hearts of these little humans, and although I've become accustomed to that fact that grasshopper legs can turn up anywhere, it's the reason I don't search pockets before throwing my kids' jeans into the wash.
All mothers seem to suffer. All of us, that is, except my sister Patti. For whatever reason, her children have never had much interest in housing rodents or boarding bumblebees. They've never built little houses for crickets, had bestpet contests for beetles or proclaimed a lake trout to be, and I quote, the bombdiggity.
It's not fair that a woman such as her would raise boys and never not once ever have one of them show up in the kitchen with a dead garter snake, hoping he could keep it as a family pet.
I wouldn't be surprised to find out that her kids changed their own diapers.
All things considered, you can imagine Patti's dismay when her little boy developed an affection for a couple of small and happy toads that hopped through our yard just last week.
I must say that nothing could have made me happier.
"What is that?" she asked as I approached her with a 5-gallon bucket.
"Jonny's toad collection," I answered with a sinister smile.
"Oh, I don't think so," Patti said as her face went pale.
"Open the door and I'll place this securely into your backseat," I said as I hoisted the bucket to chest level so that Patti might take a gander.
"We don't do toads," Patti said matter of-factly, as if stating it made it so.
"We have to take them home," Jonny insisted when he saw the look on his mother's face. "I'll take real good care of them, I promise!"
Taking care of them wasn't of any concern to Patti. Their possible demise wasn't causing her heart to race. It was the thought of having real, live amphibians in her care that made her want to throw up.
"Jonny, how about if we leave these toads at Aunt Lori's house and I'll bring you to visit every day?"
"But he'll take good care of them," I said as I reiterated the little guy's own words. I then put a hand on Jonny's shoulder for support before I added, "He promises."
"Toads have germs, Jonny," Patti said in hopes of putting the fear of God into the little lad.
"But Aunt Lori gave me germ stuff," Jonny said as he pulled a bottle of antibacterial gel out of his little pocket.
Patti didn't say that she despised me at that moment, but the look that she shot me certainly said that she'd like to pull my hair. Resisting that temptation, she then bent to Jonny's eye level in order to explain toad excrement, the threat of warts and even went so far as to say that toads couldn't be relocated.
"In order to haul these home, I'd need to be medicated," she pleaded with me. "You know that, don't you?"
"It's what mothers of boys must endure," I said, as I patted her on the back.
"How about if I get Jonny to look the other way and you accidentally turn over the bucket and set them free?"
"And break a little boy's heart? I don't think so."
"Why can't you just bring them to my house for me?"
I looked at her, and although she's my sister and I love her with all of my heart, she's never had to deal with rollie pollie collections, ant farms, lizard lairs or, heaven help me, the occasional snake who worms his way into the family's heart with his award-winning smile.
So instead of offering to chauffeur the toads to her house, I simply said, "I would haul them for you. I just don't want to."
I buckled the toad bucket into the back seat and then, being the good aunt that I am, I helped Jonny into his car seat.
"Is my mommy going to turn into a toad?" Jonny asked as Patti knotted her seatbelt into a rosary.
"No silly," I answered with curiosity. "Why?"
"Because I just heard her say that if she croaks on the way home that it'll be all your fault."
A sister's love, and a bucket of toads