All these stories about critters brought a few more memories to mind ...

We LOVED critters as kids and were always trying to catch new 'pets'. I used to love bugs, collected them inside glass jars with holes punched through the lids. One night as I was falling asleep my Mom came into my bedroom and picked up the jar full of my latest crawling collection. She was peering inside for awhile, trying to see them, and finally unscrewed the lid to take a real good look.

Well, all the bugs happened to be clinging to the inside of the lid, and when she saw that she let out this bloodcurdling scream and pitched the lid across the room. All the spiders and praying mantises and big-eyed elators and crickets went flying in every direction, and I never got out of a bed so fast in my life...

Then there was the time my brother and I won the draw for the baby alligator on the last day of school (I think we were the only ones who bought tickets!) We were so proud - took it home and decked out the bathtub real nice for it. Lots of rocks and mud from the garden ... and the alligator was so happy ... until my Dad got home from work and went to take a shower. I'll never forget the sight of him standing on the front porch in his underwear in front of the whole neighborhood screaming "Either that THING goes or I do!!!...."

And what is it about little boys and frogs anyway? I quite liked frogs - when I was about 6 or 7 I'd visit the nearby pond and stuff my shirt full of them so I could carry them home on my bike (the very thought of that now gives me the willies!). That was real fun until I forgot I'd put them all in the window-well one hot summer day - When I found their shrivelled black carcasses a few days later I cried for about a week ...

But the worst was what my piano teacher's sons used to do to the frogs in the pond on their farm. They'd try to shoo me away first, telling me I had 'girl-germs' etc., but one day I hid on them to see what they were up to. They stuffed those poor frogs with firecrackers at both ends and then lit them off - the frogs would explode into this fountain of slimy red-green bits in mid-air. The boys were ecstatic - I was horrified!

I ratted on them too!

daylia