Herb, the Albino Frog

A colleague of mine sent me this story, about her cherished family pet. She was reminded of it when we were discussing the frozen geekos in Florida that literally fall from trees and go into hibernation.

A welcome respite from work, especially in the midst of the terrible news from Haiti's earthquake... I added a few paragraph breaks, for ease of reading, but otherwise, the story remains untouched:

This is pretty amazing and it is interesting how reptiles can survive so much!

That reminds me of a funny story (something about getting older makes me want to tell more stories, so listen up youngins :). We had a big fat albino frog named Herb for years. I planned to get rid of the aquarium because it was so much trouble once all the fish and the frog died.

Well, the fish died and Herb lived on for years and years. We thought, “Is this frog going to live forever?” Then, one day, I guess when he had enough of being alone, he jumped out of the tank and hopped off, I guess looking for love or wanting to commit suicide…. Our dog Rudy went chasing after him and we thought he probably ate him for snack.

We didn’t see a trace of him for days. Then Rudy guided us to a corner one evening and there was Herb stiff as a board covered with dog hair. Rudy was a good dog. I guess he preferred to play with Herb rather than eat him.

John took Herb to the sink to rinse him off and was going to give him a proper burial in the background. However, once the water covered him, he started to stir and then he woke up! John cleaned him off and put him back in the tank where he lived another 2 years!

Finally, one day we came home and there was little Herb floating in the tank with his little arms up in the air……He finally died of old age and I finally got to put up that damn aquarium.

End of story……