Guns, Booze and Frogs Gone Bad

Last night was the eve of the 4th of July and my neighbors were celebrating early. I live on the edge of a swamp in Georgia and celebrating early around here involves drinking, fireworks and shooting off one’s guns. None of that disturbed me as I sat in my living room studying, until shotgun pellets hit the side of my house.

“Dang it, boys, be more careful,” I thought. The second time pellets hit my house, I thought perhaps I should move from in front of the big window. As I was moving, pellets hit the house for the third time. Now they had violated my Rule of the Swinging Fist:

You have every right to swing your fist without interference until your fist touches my nose.

I called the police. The young cop got here very fast and was quite nice. I apologized for his inconvenience and wished him a safe holiday. Another neighbor stopped to talk to him, probably about pellets hitting their house as well. The cop simply drove down the street with his lights flashing and it grew quiet-very quiet, too quiet!

The weird thing is that it stayed quiet for the rest of the night. You see, the background noise on the edge of a swamp is a chorus of a billion boy tree frogs calling out, I presume, for the attentions of girl tree frogs.

But why would a cop going down the street render the tree frogs silent? Do they have criminal minds? What are they plotting out there amidst the Spanish Moss? 🙂