Contrary to popular belief, kissing a frog does not turn you into a prince or princess. Actually, it may give you Salmonella instead. Frogs may even be dangerous to touch depending on where you live. Some are poisonous and carry bacteria. This can be fatal especially if you don’t wash your hands after touching a frog. However, I as a younger self played with frogs quite a bit. It was strange and dangerous, but no one stopped me and I never got sick or a disease from them.

When I was about five years old living in Fuzhou, China, I used to catch frogs at a nearby grassland area with a pond. I lived in a private neighborhood where every house was the same and were perfectly lined up with each other. At the end of my street was a small pond. There were usually ducks or geese around the pond but there were always tons of frogs in the wet grass and they were very small. They were extremely normal and perfect looking frogs like you see in cartoons. Small and a light green color, they fitted perfectly in my little hands. Looking back, it seems very strange that a child would be catching frogs since they are slimy and gross, but I enjoyed doing it with friends back then. They didn’t look weird or dangerous, so I saw no problems doing this. I remember the first time we went, I feared touching them. After being handed one by my friend, I got into it and caught frogs with my hands and released them for fun. Eventually I brought one home. I had a pet turtle at the time and thought it would be a good idea to keep the frog in the same tank as the turtle, so I could keep it as a pet too. It wasn’t a very big turtle and we kept it in a small water tank on the living room table. As soon as I dropped the frog in the tank, I was startled because the turtle started attacking the frog. When the frog fell into the water, the turtle swam at it and took a huge bite out of it. The frog was quivering in the water until the turtle took a few more bites and finished him off. The tank water became dirty and bloody with frog parts floating around. When my grandma saw this, she asked what happened and I said I put in a frog, so they could be friends, but the turtle ate it. She cleaned the tank and put new water in it. I didn't get in trouble for doing this, so I brought home more frogs several times after and did the same thing hoping that the turtle wouldn’t eat the frog. The turtle never cooperated and killed the frog every time. Eventually my grandma yelled at me to stop.

At the time I was around five years old, so I didn’t really have sympathy for the frogs and didn’t understand what I was doing. However, after being yelled at by my grandma I understood it was kind of cruel to do. This was probably my first experience with a death of an animal larger than a bug. Because I was so young I don’t think I knew what I was doing and didn’t get any trauma. I still found it fun to go to the pond and catch a bunch of frogs but I stopped bringing them back home. I guess my younger self learned the cruelty of nature after my first experience with this. I was still curious why these two water dwelling creatures didn't get along. Maybe it was just that we didn’t feed our turtle enough.