Enquiring minds asked to know, so here is the famous (at least in my family) Frog Story.

I am a firm believer that God has an incredible sense of humor - which is why He gave me four boys -the girl was an answer to prayer! And I do so love my boys, but they are so very different than me. They love all things creepy and crawly.

The Frog Story

I was a sweet young girl of nine tender years. Our family lived in a small rural town in south Louisiana on an acre of land. Back in those days I thought an entire acre was just about as much land as a family could hope to live on, ahh sweet youth.

Although I was throughly a girl my mother had been raised by a scientist and an artist. My scientist grandfather kept venemous snakes in the family basement, he milked them for the venom. I never got to meet this amazing man, as he went to be with the Lord when my mom was a girl herself. But mom remembered her daddy's snakes and raised us to enjoy the slippery serpants.

Which is why this girly girl at the tender age of nine, had a pet snake in her room. Yep, me, a real live pet snake. (No son you may not! You see I do not have my mothers affection for the creepy crawlies, maybe your grandma will let you keep one at her house )

I kept my snake in a ten gallon aquarium on my dresser and fed it little tree frogs that I would catch in our yard. For your information, if you are into hunting tree frogs, the best place to find them in the daytime is the inside of the top pole of the swing set (you know, where the plastic safety plug is supposed to go - ours was lost - or never put on - or maybe that is a trendy 21st century saftey device) whatever the case, it was the best spot to find a little frog to feed my snake.

Now any of you who are familiar with serpents will know they do not eat often. I had placed a frog in with the snake and they lived happily together for several days. Until that fateful night. At four or so in the morning I awakened to the most horrid scream I had ever heard. Someone was being murdered, in my room. Calling out to my parents from under the covers, I was so very afraid! I am sure I woke the entire house with my wailing. My parents ran to my rescue, flipped on the lights and we saw... the poor frog being eaten alive. The snake had grabbed him by his back leg and was happily munching (do snakes munch?) and the little guy was actually screaming bloody murder. A frog screaming is a most frightful thing for a sweet little girl to hear at four in the morning.

And to this day, I am afraid of frogs. I know it is the snake I should have a problem with, but HE did not wake me up screaming! I will jump and scream when I see a frog or toad and walk far out of the way so that we will not cross the same path. I cannot imagine the horror of having one touch me. I really am concerned that they all have it out for me and will jump on me if given the chance. I know this is silly, but its ok to be silly sometimes isn't it? And my boys know this story - and they love to tease me.

Btw, my pet snake was released to the wild the very next day - there was NO WAY I was ever going to catch another frog to feed him!

So now that you are laughing at how ridiculous I am, are you brave enough to share your silly fear?