Tag: frog

My Funny Childhood Phrases

On By Michel McDonaldIn My ChildhoodLeave a comment

When I was growing up my parents and aunt said the funniest things to us kids. Like for example, when someone farted they would call it “stepping on a frog”. Have you ever heard anyone refer to it as that? The reason they said that was because back in the 70′s the word fart was a bad word. It was such a bad word that we would get slapped (or in my case beat) if we said it. So the nicest way of saying it was stepping on a frog.

Every night when we went to bed, my mother would tell us “Goodnight, sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite, if they bite, bite them back.”

When I was in my late 20′s I said that to a friend of ours who lived right on the beach in Malibu just before she went to bed and I got a tongue lashing from it. ”HOW DARE YOU” and that wasn’t from the friend, that was from Darrin. How dare I accuse her of having bed bugs, she’s rich, she lives in a beach house in Malibu. How dare I even suggest that she has any bugs in her house.

It’s funny how despite my best intentions, something from my childhood isn’t quite accepted by anyone other than my family members.

And yes, that is me on the right, the girl on the left is my older sister. I don’t remember the occasion that picture was taken but I think it was when we lived on Holtby Road here in Bakersfield which is oddly enough on my exercise bike route. I pass that house every time I ride my bike to the bike trail.

Deadly Pet Toys

On By Michel McDonaldIn PetsLeave a comment

We got our Toy Chihuahua last year so we’ve had her for maybe a year and 2 months.  When we first got her we went to PetSmart and bought her this little toy that is a green frog with a squeaker inside of it.  She loves that frog.  She’s always playing with it and her favorite thing is to bite down on the squeaker to make it squeak.

She’s chewed the hell out of that frog and she’s even torn the fabric so that she was able to access the squeaker and she chewed the tip of it off.  This was like 6 months or so ago.  I took the squeaker out and threw it away when I realized what she had one.

About a month ago I found the spare squeaker that came with the frog and there is an access in the back of the frog with Velcro so you can remove the one inside and replace it.  Well, even though she chewed the hell out of the stomach it didn’t occur to me that she might try to chew the spare squeaker the same way.  I don’t know why.  I forgot that she did it to the first one so it didn’t really occur to me to not put the second one in there.

Today Darrin was laying on the couch talking to his brother on the phone and our dog Flower was laying next to his feet just going to town on this frog.  I saw how passionate she was chewing on this thing and it didn’t occur to me that she might have been chewing the tip of the squeaker.

Darrin got off the phone and I noticed that she was clawing at her face.  I went over to her and picked up the frog and she didn’t try to get it back, she was still clawing at her face.  She had this look of horror in her eyes.  I could tell she was in trouble but I didn’t know what to do.  I looked at the squeaker and the tip was gone.  The part that makes the squeaking sound was laying on the couch where she was laying all by itself next to the frog and I realized she was choking on something.

I put my finger in her mouth and I could feel it in her throat but I couldn’t get at it.  I accidentally pushed it in her throat and she was struggling still.  I knew she couldn’t breathe at all.  I told Darrin to blow inside her mouth to help her out but he didn’t know what I meant.  He put his lips up to her mouth and blew on them, I grabbed her and put her entire snout into my mouth and just blew and then chip squeezed her chest and you could hear a popping sound, the plastic piece shot out of her mouth and fell onto the floor.

OMFG!!!  I was in total panic mode, I didn’t know what to do.  I didn’t know what I was doing when I blew in her mouth, I thought I was helping her but at the same time I would’ve been hurting her.  If it weren’t for Darrin squeezing her chest she would’ve been dead.

I immediately threw the frog away and took a picture of the squeaker.  You can see in the picture the piece that she had stuck in her throat, it’s the thing that the arrow is pointing to.

squeeker

I can only imagine what might have happened if we weren’t home to see this happening, what we might have walked in on one day.  I might have been on my bike ride and come home to find a dead toy chihuahua laying on the living room floor or on the couch.  Or we might come home from the movies or from going out to dinner.  I will never ever buy another toy with one of these things in it ever again.  And if I find a toy that has one, I’m going to take it out first.

My aunt Louise takes them out.  When I went to visit her for Christmas in Texas someone bought her dogs some toys and she took the squeakers out but I didn’t know why, now I know.  They are killers.  But her dogs are a lot bigger than mine, like Golden Retriever sized dogs.  Our dog is smaller than a cat.  Like half the size of a cat.  I never even imagined this would happen but now I do and I’ve learned from it.