Little salamander and wee toad., originally uploaded by lalagirl.

Thursday night, Paul was coming home kind of late. As he was pulling in the garage, he saw something dart across the garage floor. So, naturally, he FREAKED OUT, put the van in park in the driveway and ran to see what it was. It was a fat little salamander! So he called for me and I threw it in an ice cream bucket so the kids could check it out.

So, before I even found the lid for the bucket, Paul was hollering at me from the garage again. He found ANOTHER salamander in the garage! I was just laughing by then. Threw #2 in the bucket. I wasn't even in the house yet when Paul screamed, "Honey!! There's a frog in here, too! What the hell is going on?" He found the teeeeeniest, tiniest baby toad, and swept him into his dustpan, and I threw HIM in the bucket too.

So, the kids checked out our little herpetology collection for a few minutes, and Paul FREAKED OUT THE ENTIRE TIME. He was all, "Honey! Honey! It's going to get out! Stop! It's going to touch your finger! Honey! Get that lid on! Honey! Honey! You can't let that thing get out in here!" He was being such a GIANT PUSSY that I couldn't stop laughing. Mister "I grew up on the streets of L.A." isn't used to being around ANY creepy crawlies like that and he was acting just like a scared little girl!! TOO funny.

We let the kids look at them for a minute, and then *I* let them loose on the other side of the fence. Paul was cracking me UP - he was like, freaked out! He goes, "Why are they in my garage, honey? Why? What do they want?" "I've heard about stuff like this, crazy reactions to lightning and stuff makes animals have weird behavior!" I was like, "Yeah, it's the plague, honey! The end of the world is upon us! Hey, look out! There's Jesus behind you!" It was just, like, the funniest thing I've seen in SUCH a long time. Big tough Paul freaking OUT over a couple of salamanders and a tiny little toad, no bigger than a penny. I couldn't stop laughing at him, to the point where I was making noises to startle him as he was looking at them. It was SO FUNNY to see my big husband, who is intimidated by NO ONE, dancing around all scared of a couple of salamanders and a toad no bigger than my thumbnail!