Amphibaphobia

What is your worst fear? Is there something that leaves you absolutely paralyzed when you come in contact with it?

I personally suffer from amphibaphobia. I don’t know if that’s the correct term or not, but it’s what I call my debilitating fear of frogs.

I know that a frog cannot harm you and you don’t even really get warts from them. I know that my fear is irrational and unwarranted, but I also know that if I’d had to kiss a frog to find my prince I would be a single gal today! Not even Kermit could coax me into a little frog nookie.

The first time I remember seeing a frog I was about 4 years old. My dad chased me around the house with a toad in the palm of his hand. I know he meant no harm and was “only tormentin'” me, as daddies sometimes do, but I was scared out of my wits and ended up locking myself in the bathroom.

When I was finally convinced that it was safe to come out, I cautiously opened the door. Dad, pretending to still have the frog, threw his empty palms toward me and yelled, “BOO!”

I pretty much crumbled on the spot.

Now, in all fairness to my father, he had no idea he was feeding what would eventually become a full-blown phobia. And since that time he has dutifully apologized for the grief that his actions brought on me that day. But I can’t get past the nightmares.

I fall asleep and frogs invade every nook and cranny of my home. They are in my bed and my bathtub, and sometimes their beady eyes peer at me from the pot of soup I am stirring.

I think this is a result of years of Sunday School lessons when I had to hear about the ten plagues. Sunday School teachers take great pleasure in horrifying kids with the details of such atrocities as blood turning into water, flies swarming over the land, and utter darkness day and night. If I had been the Pharoah I would have said to Moses, “Take my first born child or strike every inch of my body with boils, but please don’t put a frog in my bed!!”

That is what a phobia does to you; makes you completely irrational.

What amazes me is how often frogs cross my path. I carefully watch for them in the dewy morning grass when I am taking out the trash, but I don’t expect them to surprise me in other places.

For example, I was doing dishes one afternoon when I heard a slap against the window. I looked up and there was a frog plastered to the outside of the glass. I have no idea how it got there, but I wasn’t about to go outside and risk the possibility of a frog flying out of nowhere and attaching itself to my face.

Another time I awoke in the middle of the night to the urge of nature’s call. Our bathroom was very small so while sitting on the commode your knees would almost touch the tub. As I was sitting there, bleary-eyed and yawning, I noticed something on the edge of the tub, just behind the lace shower curtain.

I leaned forward to get a closer look, pulled back the curtain, and found myself face to face with the ugliest frog you have ever seen! I lit up out of there so fast I made that little froggie’s head spin!

I tried to drag hubby out of bed, telling him there was no way on earth I could go back to sleep with a frog in the house, but he just rolled his back to me and said I should “get over it.”

Since he didn’t seem to care if I got any sleep or not I turned on the lights and started jumping around on the bed, yelling, “Nobody in this house is sleeping again until the frog is GONE!!”

He finally gave in to my temper tantrum and once the frog was deposited on the far side of the back yard, we were all able to get a good night’s sleep.

The house we live in now has a damp basement so we have our share of critters living down there. I found a mole in the dirty laundry, I stepped on a snake on the steps, and the spiders are so thick I have to beat them off to get to my washing machine. But none of those things compared to the big, fat frog contentedly sitting in the corner and watching me do laundry.

In order to get out of the basement I would have to go right past him. He had me cornered and he knew it! I took a deep breath, gathered my robe around my legs and started running in the direction of the stairs. The frog gave a mighty leap, fully intending to attack. I started screaming as loudly as I could and ran the other direction. I could hear son at the top of the stairs saying nonchalantly, “Daddy, I think there’s a frog in the basement.”

Hubby took his sweet time coming down to rescue me. I was huddled in the far corner, crying hysterically. Rolling his eyes he barked, “Where is it?”

I pointed in the direction of the washing machine and watched as he chased the frog around the basement. Finally I cried, “Why don’t you just CATCH it?”

Hubby glared at me and said, “Do YOU want to do this?” I quickly shut my mouth and tried not to even whimper when the frog jumped my direction before he was finally captured.

I know the best way to get over my phobia is to actually handle a frog. Maybe someday I will find someone I trust to hold a frog tightly while I pet it. In the meantime, please don’t send me froggie potholders or froggie towels and especially not ceramic frogs that hold scouring pads in their mouths. As a matter of fact, I don’t even want the matching scouring powder toadstool. Those things have creeped me out ever since 1975 when my aunt made about 20 sets in her ceramics class and handed them out for Christmas.

I think everybody must have had an aunt taking ceramics in 1975, because the ugly toad/toadstool combo seems to be gracing the edge of every kitchen sink in America. Sometimes when I am doing dishes at my mother-in-law’s, I am tempted to knock her ceramic frog into the sink and claim it was froggie suicide. But as much as I hate them, I don’t think I could handle my amphibaphobia turning to amphibaguilt.