Amphibians with attitude

With the house undergoing major renovation we have lost the use of both bathrooms; and are having to use a rudimentary affair in the under-build of the house. Functional though it is this bathroom is usually avoided. Not only is decrepit, it is often visited by toads who limbo under the garage door.

Unlike the garden frogs who hop away when disturbed, the local toads seem to have adopted a different attitude. These toads are in no hurry they don’t jump, they amble, looking back over their shoulder as they do so as if to say, ‘I’ll be back’. like some kind of an insect terminator

Monday night and before going to bed I decided to pay a visit to the bathroom. Sure enough there was the toad, surly as ever. But with the aid of a piece of cardboard, which proved to be an effective shield, I ushered the toad out of the back door and into the night. I watched as he shuffled away glancing back towards me with that familiar look of the terminator toad.

2am and I needed to go to bathroom. Down three flights of stairs I descended to the darkness of what was fast becoming more of the underworld than the under-build.

The light switches are strategically placed so the you must enter the realm of darkness before you can benefit from light. Under my right foot I felt something soft, ‘Oh no not the toad’! With the light on I was relieved to find it was only a piece of lagging from the pipe work. After all toads are desirable for their pest control qualities, though you don’t really want them in the house.

Then I saw it, I could’t believe it, sitting in the shower tray was the terminator toad.
‘Out!’ I said, using the cardboard as a shield once more to remove the toad via the same door.

As the toad ambled away I called after it, ‘And don’t come back’.
The toad hesitated for a moment, before looking back over it’s shoulder the way terminators do as if to say,

‘Oh, I’ll be back’