» Accidental animal cruelty

Frogs & electric Fences = accidental human cruelty
When I was fifteen, I came dangerously close to failing my first year of GCSE French - I think I actually got a U in three out of the four papers. My mother promptly utilised her full network of European connections, and I was sent to a Girl Guide camp in Belgium for two weeks. None of them spoke English as in Belgium, being a dual language country, they learn either French or Flemish as their second language.

The camp was in a field in the middle of Belgium. On the edge of this field was an electric fence - nothing prison camp, just a couple of wires good for keeping cattle out. The fortnight before the camp started, it had rained pretty much non-stop, and the campsite was a quagmire for the first few days. Amongst the mud, there were dozens of young frogs, happily hopping around, enjoying life.
I had a bit of a sadistic streak at that stage (some might say I still do) and I decided after a few days to try to electrocute a frog, just to see what would happen.

Well, I don't know what happened to the baby frog, but I got a fairly massive shock, enough to make me scream and twitch a bit for a few minutes. The Belgians came running and I had to try to explain, in U grade GCSE French, that I didn't know that it was an electric fence despite having climbed tentatively over it for the last few days (the toilet pit was in the woods on the other side of the fence), and no, I wasn't a masochist who enjoyed electrocution. Good times.

Moral of the story: don't try to electrocute other animals whilst you're still touching them, especially if they're wet and/or slimy.
(Fri 7th Dec 2007, 9:36, More)