White Rabbit

Currently, we’re keeping a list of pros and cons of living here vs. somewhere else. Our list currently looks something like this:

Pros:
Nice beaches
Warm weather
Ubiquitous air conditioning

Cons:
A bizarre culture that debates regularly whether or not to eat the squirrel they shot in their backyard with the bb gun, and whether squirrel is better stewed or fried, if edible
The perpetual availabilty of frog legs in restaurants
Devastating hurricanes
Hallicinogenic poisonous toads

The last bit will be the subject of today’s lesson, which is: don’t write about how scared you are about talking to your kids about drugs when you should be more worried about your dog taking it upon herself to lick a trippy frog that could kill her.

S. mouthed a trippy toad – you know, the ones you heard rumors that if you licked ‘em, you’d start tripping? Yes, they really exist here. The mouthing happened last night on her late night walk around midnight, right after I wrote about all of my trippy experiences and how drugs are good! Great! Everyone drop a tab! Before you launch off on me that I am an idiot, I thought it was a rock, you see, and had no idea until she dropped it and was all…confused. And although she foamed at the mouth, staggered, was completely disoriented, and I’m pretty sure was seeing trails when she moved her paws back and forth in front of her face, apparently, we should be lucky she survived at all, as it was a small bufo toad, and not a large one, which surely would have killed her.

We spent the night on the phone with the emergency vet, who assured us that if she wasn’t seizing uncontrollably, she was fine and would recover and also mentioned, in a casual tone, that if she did start seizing, well, there was nothing we could do, and bye bye puppy!, as there is no antidote, only prevention. And so, we hosed her down outside and screamed things like, “Live BABY! LIVE! BREATHE FOR US!!!” while we stuck the entire force of the hose down her mouth to rinse away the rest of the venom. I’m surprised I didn’t drown her, truthfully, such was my panicked zeal. Also: I’d never heard of a poisonous bufo toad and I never THOUGHT that the cute little benign toad that’s been taking shelter outside our front door would be a Weapon of Mass Hallucination and Deadly Poison. But lo! Bufo toads are trippy AND deadly, like all drugs can be! Here is my lesson! Don’t do drugs like the dog! DANGER, puppy! And JonnikerSpawn!

And then, you know, we didn’t sleep as we waited for her to start seizing and die. At one point she stopped snoring, and I ripped her out of her bed and pretty much started doing mouth to mouth, sobbing like a drunken fool.

“OH MY GOD! COME BACK TO US!!!” I was wailing like some sort of deranged banshee who’d lost her silver comb.

I’m pretty sure she was just pissed off at my constant hovering and just wanted me to shut up, leave her alone and let her sleep, for she glared at me with glaring beams of white hot glarey death. This was also at 4 a.m., when she was so far out of the woods, she was in Camelot.

So: Hallucinogenic poisonous toads: bad. Beaches: good. Puppy: alive. Lesson for my future real kids: priceless.

*Jefferson Airplane, of course.

25 comments June 21st, 2006