TooBusyLivingLife suggested that bloggers start revealing their childhood traumas every Tuesday. At first I thought to myself “nah, I had my problems as a kid, but overall my childhood was pretty good compared to other people’s.” Especially compared to TooBusyLivingLife’s.
But then I started trying to come up with events that could be considered ‘trauma’. I searched for ‘pain’ and ‘suffering’ in the Google of my brain, and the search results were somewhat surprising: Frogs. Frogs frogs frogs. Frogs all the way down.
I used to love hanging out in ponds and swamps. One day, I went to the local pond with a nice red bucket, hoping to catch me some wildlife. I came across a puddle full of hundreds of little tadpoles. Perfect! I could get a bucketfull of tadpoles, bring them home, and watch as they grew into pet frogs. I’d finally have some friends!
I brought them home, watched them grow for a while, then got bored and went to watch Thundercats or something. The next morning, I stepped outside to witness the horror in the bucket; hundreds of dead tadpoles. Cut down in their youth, before they could even grow legs, and it was all my fault. I’ve blocked out what they looked like, but I still remember the smell of stale pond water filled with bloated rotting pre-frogs. I will always associate that smell with death. Funeral homes remind me of buckets, ponds, and that smell.
I didn’t learn my lesson, though. I remember bringing a giant bullfrog home and putting it in a big metal bucket. To keep it from getting away, I put a screen over the top of the bucket. The next day, the frog’s face was mangled. Red and white with blood and infection and pus. It had tried escaping, hopping its face against the screen over and over until its nose was gone.
The worst frogtrauma happened a few years later. During recess at school, I came across a couple of aquaintances squatting over something at the edge of a forest. I went in for a closer look just in time to see a lit firecracker in a tiny frog’s mouth. I still remember with crystal clarity one of the guys saying “look, he’s smoking” and the rest of them laughing. I turned away before hearing the pop.
There was an assembly * after recess, and I avoided sitting near the kids who murdered that frog. I was shaking with anger, wondering how anyone could laugh while they killed an innocent living thing. My anger was directed at the kids, but maybe subconsciously I was also a little angry at myself for all the pain I’d caused frogs in my lifetime.
This post is dedicated to the familes of all those tadpoles I killed long ago. Keep on hopping.
* Remember assemblies? Do they have those any more, or do they just send the kids an email with news and motivational messages?
P.S. Above is a picture of a dead frog found in someone’s bag of frozen peas. There’s a trauma for someone to blog about.
Phronk.com 
Comments
26 responses to “Childhood Trauma Tuesday Wednesday”
Great story…reminds me of when I was a kid and left a bunch of bacon in my tacklebox at the cottage and two days later….maggots! Yuck!
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Great story…reminds me of when I was a kid and left a bunch of bacon in my tacklebox at the cottage and two days later….maggots! Yuck!
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Assemblies… ya I wonder if they still do that.Where do you get firecrackers these days?
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Assemblies… ya I wonder if they still do that.Where do you get firecrackers these days?
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Just wanted to stop by and thank you for leaving me a comment!
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Just wanted to stop by and thank you for leaving me a comment!
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Mmm, bacon.I guess now you have to save up firecrackers from Victoria and Canada Day. I’d be kinda scared of leaving a stockpile of firecrackers in my basment though. It’d be like in that movie where the guy is smoking near the box of firecrackers, and you’re like “I know where this is going!”I have no idea what movie I’m referring too, but it probably exists.
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Mmm, bacon.I guess now you have to save up firecrackers from Victoria and Canada Day. I’d be kinda scared of leaving a stockpile of firecrackers in my basment though. It’d be like in that movie where the guy is smoking near the box of firecrackers, and you’re like “I know where this is going!”I have no idea what movie I’m referring too, but it probably exists.
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all you could come up with was frogs?!?!
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all you could come up with was frogs?!?!
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well if it makes you feel any better mike there are apparently no frogs in new zealand…thats gotta make you feel good and ouch for the crossout name on your ‘other blogs’….thats a burn
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well if it makes you feel any better mike there are apparently no frogs in new zealand…thats gotta make you feel good and ouch for the crossout name on your ‘other blogs’….thats a burn
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i remember a time when you didnt have a lot of comments….and i posted….you leave the country, and your name gets crossed out…whatever next
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i remember a time when you didnt have a lot of comments….and i posted….you leave the country, and your name gets crossed out…whatever next
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Gardner dude! You’re back! I only crossed you off because you hadn’t posted or visited in a looong time. I assumed you quit the internet and/or got bitten by a poisonous New Zealand frog and died. Now I see how incredibly wrong I was. You’re not only uncrossed, but at the top of the list now.
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Gardner dude! You’re back! I only crossed you off because you hadn’t posted or visited in a looong time. I assumed you quit the internet and/or got bitten by a poisonous New Zealand frog and died. Now I see how incredibly wrong I was. You’re not only uncrossed, but at the top of the list now.
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See now, I got nothing for CTT. I really had a boring childhood.I do however have cousins who were fighting over a frog the sister caught. Finally when the brother wouldn’t let up, she screamed, “my frog” and smushed it.
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See now, I got nothing for CTT. I really had a boring childhood.I do however have cousins who were fighting over a frog the sister caught. Finally when the brother wouldn’t let up, she screamed, “my frog” and smushed it.
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holy shit! great story!
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holy shit! great story!
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I cried reading this post
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I cried reading this post
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Thanks for the comments everyone. Adorable Girlfriend: That sounds like a trauma to me. Poor frog. 😦 Have you seen that episode of Lost where Sawyer squishes a frog? That was rough.One of my best friends caught a frog then tossed it across a backyard for no reason. That was also traumatic, but I figured I had enough frog stories in there. I still have hope that the frog survived its flight across the yard. Maybe landed on a soft mushroom or something.
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Thanks for the comments everyone. Adorable Girlfriend: That sounds like a trauma to me. Poor frog. 😦 Have you seen that episode of Lost where Sawyer squishes a frog? That was rough.One of my best friends caught a frog then tossed it across a backyard for no reason. That was also traumatic, but I figured I had enough frog stories in there. I still have hope that the frog survived its flight across the yard. Maybe landed on a soft mushroom or something.
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No, I think I am the only person that doesn’t watch Lost. I do have to say, I heard the story from my Mom who was watching them. I didn’t see the actual smush, so I cannot claim it for CTT.
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No, I think I am the only person that doesn’t watch Lost. I do have to say, I heard the story from my Mom who was watching them. I didn’t see the actual smush, so I cannot claim it for CTT.
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