A few summers ago while stationed in Georgia the girls and I decided that since Brandon was deployed we’d take a road trip to Louisiana to see my parents. So we packed up enough clothes for a month our bags, the dog, and anything else we could fit in the trunk of my Mustang and headed west.
A few hours into our trip as we were all singing along for the 10 billionth time to Gwen Stefani’s ‘Hollaback Girl’ Caylin looks out the passenger window and starts hollering….loud, really loud!
“Oh My Gosh, there’s a FROG on the window!!!!”
“a FROG?! on the window?!”
I turn to glance and sure enough- there was a tree frog…
ON THE WINDOW!!
By then Caylin was practically sitting in my lap, and would not stop screaming. Right. In. My. Ear.
Just when I had finally calmed her down and talked her in to sitting in her own seat….
It jumped!!
To the dashboard and hopped around so that it was looking her eye to eye.
At this point I think she was two seconds away from going in to cardiac arrest. And I was definitely deaf in my right ear.
Meanwhile, Lexie’s in the backseat not saying a whole lot, just giggling…she was 3, everything was funny.
As soon as we passed a sign telling us there was a rest stop at the next exit I told Caylin we’d stop there and get the frog out.
By then she had moved to the backseat and certain this frog was out to get her.
The frog, still sitting on the dashboard, had turned and started staring in my direction.
Please don’t jump
Please don’t jump……
The car wasn’t even stopped before Caylin was already reaching in to the front and opening the door. She was out before I could say…”hey, at least let me get it into park”
I’m pretty sure the other motorists were seconds away from calling 911 when they realized she was screaming “FRRROGGGGG!” instead of trying to alert that I was a kidnapper or something. Their looks at us were priceless.
The frog?
He sat there for a few seconds longer and then it was as if he realized we were stopped. He hopped to the now empty passenger’s seat, then hopped out the door and was on his merry way.
All except my hearing was well and the frog had made it out unharmed. And since we now had to go the bathroom after all that excitement we got out and stretched our legs, let the dog out, then we were on our merry way.
Twenty minutes later this is what comes from the backseat from Lexie….
“A FROG, A FROG!”…”OH My Gosh Mommy a FROG”
Great!! Did every damn tree frog in Georgia decide to hitch-hike to Florida in our car?
“Okay Lexie calm down, I’m slowing down to pull over”
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“I’m just kidding”
Great!-3 years old and she’s got her Daddy’s sense of humor….I’m doomed!
I almost pulled over anyway and let her out so she could hitch her own ride to Louisiana, it’s a good thing she was only 3, and cute.
That little frog is thought of often around here:
“I wonder how he’s doing. I bet he hitched a ride with someone else by now and made it all the way to California, or maybe even Japan”
“Yes Lexie, he made it to California and became a stowaway on a ship and is now in Japan”
So please…. If you’re ever travelling on I-10 headed west from Tallahassee, and stop at the rest stop just before the bridge over the bay in Pensacola; and that frog still happens to be there….
Tell him we all said “Hi” and that Caylin says “Thanks for not jumping”.
p.s. after that the lyrics of the song were changed from “I ain’t no Hollaback Girl” to “Caylin IS a Hollaback Girl”
photo of tree frog courtesy of Wikipedia
Oh my gosh! I am laughing so hard right now!!! Poor Caylin! I would have made you pull over on the shoulder! (Not a fan of frogs here.) And Lexi is too funny 🙂 LOL!!!
Caylin?!?…. after all her screaming I felt sorry for the poor frog at that point, and I’m not a fan of the little creepers either 😉
and yah, it’s a non-stop comedy fest around here, between the girls and B, I very rarely have a day when I don’t spew coffee or choke on it from some of the stuff they say.
I think the road trip stories are going to become a regular feature around here, we can never take one w/o something happening,lol!
ROFL yes, you need to do a series on “road trips.” Hilarious as in laugh out loud (not just lol) funny.
I love these kind of stories; you really capture the moment 🙂
Thanks Sherree 🙂 while writing this one up I had a few true LOL moments myself just re-living it.
The next in the ‘Road Trip’ series involves Brandon 😉
Lol. I can’t believe I freaked out because of a frog…..I sit around and watch horror movies all the time but I’m scared of frogs and ovens……makes no sense. But then again I am YOUR child haha (: and Lexie hasn’t changed one bit! I love our road trips and you.
Yep, you would have thought that frog was chasing you with a chainsaw, lol!
I love you too sweetie, and can’t wait til our next adventure 🙂
I would have been the exact same way if I saw that frog. I can handle snakes and spiders but frogs and toads I can’t do.
it wouldn’t have been so bad when she freaked out if we hadn’t been in the car…going 75mph…LOL 😉
yah, I don’t like them either, snakes and spiders give me the willies too, just thinking of them while typing made me shiver…yuuuuck!
That would so freak me out. I can just imagine all of the screaming that would ensue.
Bridget, it was a definite scream-fest in there for a while, my hearing has never been the same 😉
I really do wish I would have been there for this. You girls crack me up. Good one to introduce yourself with to the Story Dam community, babe! 😉
We wish you had been there too, but that’s okay your little ‘mini me’ made sure we had some of your sense of humor thrown in 😉 And I agree,we are pretty funny at times… the three of us should take our ‘show’ on the road….minus the frog 😀
Hey now, frogs are people too… um… wait… what? 😉
Ok I am probably in the minority, but I would have loved to have a frog along for the ride! Good thing you stayed calm 🙂
Tricia, honestly it wouldn’t have bothered me that much either had Caylin not been freaking out so bad. He could have happily ridden on the dashboard all the way to Louisiana, as long as he would have stayed there… but frogs jump, and that’s the part I don’t like 😉
Thanks for stopping by!
So cute! I adore tree frogs! When I was a little girl, I would trap them in jars and keep them as pets.
Valerie, you would have LOVED visiting our house in Georgia then, we had tree frogs everywhere!! I cannot tell you how many I found in the tub, on the living room wall, or on the windows. And don’t even get me started on how many I found in my flower beds. (never saw one a tree, LOL) At first they freaked me out, but after I while it wasn’t so bad… until one tried to hitch a ride 😉
This is fantastic! Especially the ending.
MAYBE if you kept the game going you could talk your daughter into writing a book about the adventurous frog…
Hey, I’d read it.
Ray, I have a ton of these little road trip adventures of ours. Someone asked if we were going to compile them all into one book someday, we may just do that.
And thanks for the idea for the frog story, it definitely would be an even bigger adventure than imagined with this little one writing it 😉
Thanks for stopping by 🙂