raining frog monkeys

Houston had a drought last month. It's normally as hot and wet as a Finnish sauna here but June was waterless. Well, this past week the rains returned and my dead brown grass resurrected itself (with little or no help from me—I'm no farmer). Along with the return of the green came the sound of frogs under my "pier and beam" house.

I want to know where the hell they came from. Are they like sea monkeys—just waiting to be reconstituted? Unless they are ventriloquists, there must be five of them under my house. Every room is alive with relentless trilling. Since I witnessed no massive amphibian migration (hordes of hot, dry frogs dragging their withered, unappetizing legs across the yard to the crawlspace under my home), I must assume they were there the whole time. Throats parched (with humans, forgive the pun) and unable to make a peep. Maybe they were like those geckos you find under the couch: shriveled up and flat as a tortilla. Then, like cheap toys, they swell up to twice their size when immersed in water.

Anyway, they need to give it a rest. It was all Discovery Channel delight for the first day, but now it sounds like amphibious whining.

Postscript: AHA! I am not alone. Hawaiians have frog issues, too.
And I don't even have hyperacusis.

And if that wasn't enough...
In addition to bringing frogs, the storm managed to trip a breaker. So Barbara went out to the box and switched it back on. It made a decidedly uncooperative sound and switched itself right back off. This bodes poorly. It goes without saying (but I'll do so anyway) that the line affected included the refrigerator. Filled with that day's purchase of a week's worth of groceries. If I have to depend on one more heavy duty extension cord to keep things going in this house, I'm going to park my car on the front lawn and tear all the sleeves off my shirts. We made coffee in the living room.