FROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOGGGG BASEBAAAAAAAALLLL! (Sort of)
During my secondary school years, when I wasn't being bullied at school, underlining my role as class geek or running round the local park playing 30-a-side football, I was at home combining my two favourite pastimes of slobbing on the couch and watching TV.

My stepdad hated this - "why can't you get off your arse" was a common request of his when I was sprawled on the sofa, drooling, in front of Byker Grove, Grange Hill or Neighbours. After a few years of this, my stepdad (who was nothing but innovative) decided to make a special effort to co-erce me to be liberated from the living room furniture and out into the big wide world.

Now, I am a bit of a wuss when it comes to a lot of things but most of all I hate anything amphibian, reptilian or bug-like. Just the thought of being in the presence of such animals makes my stomach turn and I often get the shivers whenever I'm forced to watch nature programs on the lives of the Botswanan fighting slug, or whatever.

Unsurprisingly my stepdad knew this, and on this very occasion he decided to exploit it. We had a pond in our garden, and it was a regular haunt for that ubiquitous amphibian, the frog.

Frogs, and their slimy, squishy nature, are no.1 on my phobic list. Even typing this is making me nauseous. Anyway...

I'm slobbing on the sofa watching Newsround, unaware of the surroundings in a semi-comatose state, when my stepdad sneaks up along side and places a frog, freshly plucked from the pond, on my hand.

My response, as you might expect, was one of adrenaline-fuelled horror - to this day I've never moved so fast.

I jumped up with this fucking thing on my hand, and snapped my hand back to get the slimy bastard as far as possible away from me.

Once freed from this torment, I moved to settle back down in front of the telly when I hear my stepdad roaring 'you little shit!', my mum in stitches laughing and my bro running down the stairs to see what was going on.

In my bluster, I'd launched the frog so hard, it'd headed back towards my stepdad with such force that it'd exploded on contact on my stepdad's face, covering his rugged visage in frog guts.

Oh yes. My stepdad had just been the recipient of an amphibious face-pack. Talk about grim. To save getting a hiding I bolted out of the house and off to my mate Paul's to recount and embellish the now legendary event.

Of course, we look back on the whole situation and laugh about it. But only after his tears and me shuddering from the memory of frog bits in the front room.
(scentless_apprentice takes two bottles into the shower!, Sun 13 Apr 2008, 18:22, Reply)