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Friday, February 5, 2021

A Mystery Partially Resolved

 I have finally solved the mystery of the frogs! 

Those who follow along may remember that I occasionally wonder at the presence of frogs either in my house or in my garden which is surrounded by ten foot walls on all sides. I don't mind frogs at all. I'm simply perplexed at how they got there. The other day, when I got up in the morning, I found a rather large frog sitting near my bed, just inside the garden door which had been shut all night, as it had been raining hard. I can understand that he may have wanted to get out of the rain, but how had he done it? Had he drooled under the door in the form of a puddle and only become a frog upon arriving inside? It is a mystery, you see? This, and many other incidents. 

Well, yesterday morning I was taking a shower and I noticed something on the wall, which I took, through somewhat shower clouded eyes, to be a moth. Upon turning the shower stream in its direction, however, I found this to be not a moth but a small frog. Moreover, there was a companion frog nearby, also on the wall. Not on the floor, mind you, or in the seam between floor and wall, but a quarter of the way up the wall! 

And so that's it! These Indonesian frogs can climb up and down walls--and not just any walls, but even ceramic tile walls (wet ceramic tile being the most slippery surface known to man, having thrown me on my ass many times in the past).

Apparently, these frogs have sticky little feet, like the cicak lizards one often sees running about the walls and ceiling. These particular frogs, I presume, had descended from the vented window near the ceiling and, having found nothing but a boring bathroom floor, had begun to ascend again. In the same way, the frogs which appear in the wall garden area must climb in from the outside, up one side of the wall and down the other. 

Although, come to think of it, a mystery remains regarding the large frog who had not only scaled the wall during the night but had somehow found himself inside my closed door as well. 

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