Mushrooms and Toads

It happens every summer

Here on the Great Plains of Turtle Island where I currently live the monsoon season begins in early July and extends well into August. The term, ‘monsoon,’ is not technically accurate. What we experience is just almost-daily afternoon thunderstorms (with an occasional tornado or two). I am not a meteorologist so please don’t ask me to delineate the subtle difference between monsoons and almost-daily thunderstorms.

The important point I want to make is that this short two-month thunderstorm season comes with two major natural occurrences. Once the soil is just soggy enough, millions of mushrooms suddenly — and I do mean suddenly — sprout forth out of the ground. Okay, I am not a mathematician so I am not sure if ‘millions’ is an accurate term. Maybe it is only hundreds of thousands. I have never bothered to count them or come up with some mathematical computation.

But, to me, it seems like millions. They are everywhere! They cover all the lawns and flowerbeds. They come up out of old tree stumps. They come up out of every nook and cranny of earth that is not covered by cement or asphalt. There are not only a crazy amount of them but there are also a huge variety of them.

Sadly, I am not a mycologist so I cannot tell you how many different species there are. I wish I was a mycologist so that I could know which ones are poisonous, which ones are yummy and which ones might make me happy. So my prevailing ignorance has developed a fear in me as to picking any of them. I am left only to marvel and rejoice in their mass appearance (and the delicious musty scent they add to the air).

The other major occurrence that coincides with our so-called monsoon season is the very sudden appearance of millions of toads. Mathematical accuracy aside, I was very much amazed by this when I first experienced it. Seriously, this little podunk town in which I live is thoroughly inundated with toads during this short season.

They are everywhere! They are hopping across all the lawns and flower beds and hopping down the sidewalks and their carcasses litter all the streets. During July and August one must be very careful walking the streets of this little backwater town so as not to step on a toad. Seriously, they are everywhere!

You can walk down the sidewalks in the downtown business district in the evenings and there are toads all over the sidewalks, especially in front of storefronts that have bright lights. Once the sun goes down and all the fluorescent lights come on in the store windows the toads are there lined up on the sidewalk waiting for all the bugs that are attracted to the lighting.

One thing I have noticed is that toads like to sit right next to the doors leading into retail businesses. When a customer opens the door to enter the store the toad will quickly hop into the store before the door closes. Do they want to go shopping or something? I don’t know. I’m not a herpetologist.

One July day a couple of years ago I was at work downtown. Suddenly, a female co-worker cried out, “Oh look! It’s a toad! How cute!”

I looked up from my work to see a toad hopping down the center aisle of the business.

I then heard a male co-worker say, “Oh, just step on it and throw it in the trash.”

Seriously?

I may not be a meteorologist or a mathematician or a mycologist or a herpetologist but I am most emphatically a pacifist. I go out of my way not to kill any animal (or human). So I got up from my desk chair and proceeded to try and save the darling little amphibian.

(When I find a spider in my apartment I don’t automatically kill it. I get out my trusty little spider-catching tool. That tool is an old cleaned out Grey Poupon Mustard jar. It usually works fairly well for catching spiders and then taking them outside to release them. I don’t just relocate spiders. I do it with class.)

Do you have any idea how hard it is to catch a toad? Seriously, it took me the better part of twenty minutes to catch that toad hopping around the office. You silently creep up to the toad and you bring your hands together to catch it and it hops away just before you can grab it. You inch forward to try again and, once again, just as you are about to catch it in your hands it hops away. It is an act of comedy.

But I finally caught that little toad and you know what happened?

It immediately peed all over my hands! I quickly learned that peeing is a defense mechanism employed by toads. I don’t know what good that does. It does not disable the ‘attacker’ and it does not necessarily save the toad from being devoured. But that is what toads do when they are threatened. They pee!

With my hands dripping in toad pee I briskly walked outside to the nearest flower bed and released the toad back into the wild, so to speak. I then quickly went back inside to wash my hands.

I am not a biologist so I don’t know why a toad will pee when it is threatened. Why do human infants pee when scared? I don’t know. I’m not a child psychologist.

But I saved a toad and, as a pacifist, I am very proud of that. Luckily, I am smart enough never to try to save a rattlesnake.

So anyway, just a couple of days ago I was at work and I was closing things up for the evening. I left the building out the front door, turning around to lock the door. I then turned to begin walking home from work. And I immediately stepped on something.

At first I thought it was a rock except there was a bit of a crunchy feel to it. I jumped aside then looked down where I had stepped and I quickly realized that I had stepped on a toad! And it was a pretty big toad.

I was aghast! Did I just step on a toad and kill it? I was instantly filled with horrible remorse. I felt terrible!

But as I looked at the toad it suddenly hopped forward. I was so relieved! I did not kill the toad. It was still alive!

I quickly noticed that there was a small puddle in the spot where I had stepped on the toad. The toad had apparently peed. It was a large puddle. Seriously, how big are toad bladders?

As I watched the toad hop away I saw that its right hind leg was not working normally. It was obviously still alive but it seemed to be injured. I felt horrible! I looked down at the toad and visually sent it healing rays of love energy. Heal little toad, I said silently. As it continued to hop away the injury seemed to work itself out and soon it was hopping normally. I was so relieved even as I felt like total shit for stepping on it.

It was the very first toad that I have seen so far this summer and that is when I realized that it is now toad season. Who the hell needs a calendar on the wall of their kitchen when all they have to do is see a toad to know that it is July?

For the rest of the walk home I was obsessively vigilant in noticing the path ahead of me to make sure I did not step on yet another toad. And all of my walks about town since then have been just as obsessively vigilant. Seriously, I did not want to kill a toad. And, as every year at this time, they were literally everywhere.

You know, there is the word, mushroom, and then there is the word, toad. Then there is the word, toadstool. Just what is the connection between these words? Does it have anything to do with the fact that both mushrooms and toads suddenly appear around the same time?

I don’t know. I’m not an etymologist.

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