Over the weekend, we had a treading water contest. The last one we had was probably 7-8 years ago and Hannah emerged victorious. None of us could remember how long she actually treaded water but we knew it was over an hour. It's time around, it was Nick who won out. Hannah and I dropped out at 30 minutes, Jay went for 45 minutes, and Nick beat out Becca (Hannah's friend) by going for a full 1 hour and 15 minutes. In case you're wondering, Kim was the timekeeper.
During the course of the contest, we had the inevitable "How long do you think you could really tread water if you capsized in the middle of the ocean?" conversation. None of us really know. We all say we could hold out for hours or even a full day. Hopefully, unlike the frogs around here, we'll never have to find out.
Last night, we had a torrential rain storm with plenty of thunder and lightning. It woke me up at 1:08am. The power went out about twenty minutes later. As I lay there in bed, a number of questions raced through my head. Is my phone fully charged? Will the basement flood again? Will the power come back on by morning? If it doesn't, should I go running anyway and just "rinse off" in the pool? The answers were no, no, yes, and (thankfully) the question no longer applies. The one question that didn't pop into my head was how many frogs will I find in the pool in the morning.
When I took Wally and Ginger out in the morning, I saw that, as bad as my night had been, it wasn't nearly as bad as that of the local frogs. I counted 31 of them having their own involuntary treading water contest in the pool at 6:45am. You see, when a frog happens to find its way into the pool, there's no way out. They swim around endlessly, getting increasingly water-logged and drugged up on chlorine. A few of the lucky ones make their way onto the vacuum cord that just skims the surface. They sit there forlornly while the others swim in unending circles around the pool. Who knows what they're thinking in those tiny frog-sized brains of theirs.
Remarkably, all 31 frogs were still alive when I got out there. I picked up the skimmer and started scooping them out, one by one. I tossed them into the landscaping. After flying through the air, they'd scramble back upright, probably wondering what had just happened. A few hit a holly bush a little harder than they probably liked. But, I don't think they were complaining. They were back on solid ground. The contest was over and they'd all won.
This is where the magic happens.
