Wince Upon a Time

We’re just sitting here getting ready to watch “24,” and I saw that commercial for the Chrysler “Stow-and-Go” Town and Country minivan. You’ve seen the one I mean: It shows a kid gathering all his precious things including a bright green bullfrog and secretly putting them all into the center “stow and go” compartment. Then the mother opens the compartment “lid” and the bullfrog jumps up and clings to the brink of the compartment. Every time I see that part, I wince. Why? Because it seems only natural that the surprised parent, lifting the lid and having a frog jump toward it, would recoil just enough to drop the lid, and then SQUISH—just like “Frogger."

In case you’re thinking I have a morbid imagination…my visceral response is based on something that happened about fifteen years ago.

Have you ever had one of those mid-life “Everybody sleeps at your parent’s house” gatherings? Back when my brothers and I lived all over the country, we used to get together every other Christmas Break. Sometimes we’d all arrived at Mom and Dad’s within an hour of each other in a joyous swarm of hugs and suitcases as we kicked our snowy shoes off at the back door.

Well anyway, one year we were all waiting for my brother Dave, his wife, and the three boys (arriving from Philadelphia packed in their Ford Escort). When they finally came through the door, my seven-year-old nephew—I’ll call him Brady—came in with an empty gerbil cage and a sad face.

“Don’t ask.” Dave said with a half-hug, but as soon as we were away from the others... I asked. Brady had just gotten a pet gerbil for Christmas, and he carried it in the cage on his lap for ten non-stop hours. Well, actually there was one stop just a little while before they arrived.

I’ve not seen Snakes on a Plane, but I hear it was loosely based on a story about a gerbil getting out of its cage in a tightly packed Escort at 70 MPH—they just thought making it snakes on a jet would be a little more exciting. Not really, but that is what happened to my nephew's gerbil. After a few minutes of high-speed mayhem, Dave wisely pulled off to the side of the interstate, and started searching for the little guy who had taken refuge under the passenger seat. There in the dim dome light, Dave was about to catch him when he darted toward the open car door and the dark fields beyond. “Shut the door!” Dave shouted, and the door was quickly slammed. The gerbil did not get away, but where did he go? He was not outside the car. He was visible inside the car....

Now do you see why I wince when I see the frog climbing out of the stow-and-go compartment?
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