Reflections on the Reflecting Pool

I can't stop thinking about it

Photo by fan yang on Unsplash

When my children were small we lived near a stream where all sorts of amazing creatures flourished. Some we admired from a distance. The snapping turtles, the snakes we had not yet learned to identify, the venomous ones we recognized.

The various frogs and toads were favorites. My daughter caught two tadpoles and I’m sorry to say, we imprisoned them in a ten-gallon aquarium for our own selfish satisfaction.

The tadpoles were not easy pets. They required a constant supply of fresh algae, their favorite (and as far as I could tell, only) meal. Our captives were not the little ones that looked like spermatozoa on steroids. These hunkers were the size of my thumb. My daughter named them Pricilla and Tad and waited for the magical moment when they would sprout their legs.

Cute little sticky frog - photo by E V Collins

Guess who often had to find the algae? The rocks were slippery and the snapping turtle lay in wait for my juicy fat thumbs.

I’d told my daughter Pricilla and Tad liked the safety of their tank, but once they had legs they’d want to hop. We’d need to let them go. They got bigger and bigger. The seasons changed with no sign of legs. Only then did I discover that bullfrogs are slow developers, sometimes taking a year or more to become frogs like the age-progression photo of Pricilla below.

Photo by Richard Rivas on Unsplash

So What? Who Cares? you ask.

That surplus of algae in the reflecting pool got me thinking. Frogs of many species are likely living their best lives in there, spawning with abandon, veritable algae orgies, assured their precious offspring will have a surplus of food to sustain them for however long it takes to grow legs and start the mating calls. The hydrogen peroxide will likely kill off many, but survivors may adapt and become immune.

Photo by Martin Woortman on Unsplash

These two are kind of cute. But what if there were ten thousand? Five million? What if they took over the nation’s capitol? Amphibian anarchy.

Not Boils or locusts or flies. Not hail or lice or death of the firstborn son. Just frogs. Lots of loud, sticky frogs hopping and pooping, fornicating, jumping into car windows, onto plates of pasta in outdoor cafés. An angry God commanding their assault.

But what if the frogs don’t adapt? What of the hydrogen peroxide does the trick and kills all the algae? The surviving tadpoles will have no food source. There will be no frogs to eat the locusts and flies. Same pool, different plague.

All because a bad sport wielding a boxcutter sliced 300 feet of the American Flag Blue concrete coating on the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

Do thoughts like this keep you up at night? Please let me know in the comments. It’s not just me, right? Are you too at the point where you believe anything is possible? And do you have a home blood pressure monitor? Any recommendations on one of those? Mine has consistently high readings.