Mrs. H and the Frog – Why Boys Are More Fun

When I was a child my parents hired a babysitter. Her name was Mrs. H…And she and I did not see eye to eye about many things. She was a short, very overweight person. She thought my brothers and I were “hell on wheels” and would speak with her Polish accent in short bursts of rules.

Because of the way she treated me she was often the brunt of my growing sense of humor and general boyhood thinking.

One day I caught a frog. (Her husband taught me!) A rather large frog. You cannot catch a frog and not plan on doing something with it. I decided to put the frog in the toilet in case my dad would let us cook it. What I did not count on was Mrs. H using the bathroom while I contemplated what to do. I was in the closet getting something to put it in, when she walked into the bathroom (A very large country bathroom with a closet on one end and the toilet on the other.) In the process of her opening the door, she closed the closet door. At first I thought it was one of my brothers. But then I heard her humming to herself. I looked out the key hole to make sure. And sure enough, it was her and she was going to use the toilet. Now nothing could be seen from the keyhole, because of the positioning of the toilet, behind the bath tub. And she was very near sighted, so she did not see the frog. A few moments later thought the frog jumped and so did she. She was screaming in Polish and English and whatever other words meant “Help!” I was laughing so hard as I saw her head around the corner, I nearly needed a toilet.

She ran down the stairs looking for me. I decided to head out the window at the end of the bathroom and wait on the roof for my mom to come home. I have to tell you, by now I was in hysterics. It was so funny in my head that I just wanted to see her. So, I climbed down the old lilac tree (The one my brother fell out of when we were playing hide and seek in the dark on the roof.) and looked in the kitchen window. There she was with my brothers lined up, yelling at them to find me. I was rolling. The upshot was, my parents came home and it was all they could not to laugh as she told them of the horrible thing I had done. I didn’t get in trouble…that’s what counted that day.

Over the years I have thought of the things I have done and didn’t get caught. Despite the “not getting caught” part, I have still felt badly. No, I couldn’t change things, but I often wonder of the things that might have been, had I not done the wrong thing in the first place.