We went to the Spectrum the other day for P.F. Changs (which has a miraculous 1440-calorie chocolate cake, I might add.) After dinner, we walked around a bit, passing our Brookstone store, when–displayed clearly at the front of the window–I spied a twist on the Ecosphere, the Frog-O-Sphere.

Let me backtrack a little bit. My first job [at seventeen years old] was as an administrative assistant at Valeo Companies. I got the job thanks to the Troy Tech program. Well, it just so happens I had a cheaper version of the Frog-O-Sphere, a single frog and snail from Wal-mart (I have since switched to being a Target fan, but that is a separate tangent for another day.) I named the frog Happy Happy Joy Joy, and he was my faithful desk buddy for over a year. I already had him for about two years prior to this job; he simply was along for the ride.

I went on vacation one day, filled his water before I left (thinking ahead about evaporation), and when I came back, he was gone. We guessed he jumped out. This Wal-mart Frog-O-Sphere, after all, lacked a lid. I never found the body, so it wasn’t age. I searched everywhere for him–he was my seventeen-year-old center-of-the-work-world-buddy, after all.

You can imagine the twinge of glee I felt when I discovered these guys. But I told myself I could not afford them.

On our way out after making our rounds in the Spectrum, my boyfriend decided he was going to purchase two of these Frog-O-Sphere’s–one for my desk, one for his. Off they go to work, and now I have these nameless little cousins of Happy Happy Joy Joy.

Okay, back to the present. July 4th weekend involved Friday and Monday off (Monday was a furlow day for my boyfriend that I decided to spend with him by blowing one of my vacation days), and so I take the nameless frogs home. Out of blatant stupidity–we’ll call it Idiot Move Number One, since this is going to happen several times in the course of the story–I do not put them in the guest room, the only room cut off from the cats.

And, while we’re out at lunch, the cats knock the Frog-O-Sphere over.

We come home to the lid open, the water everywhere, the “living stones” that help filter the water scattered into disarray, and frogs–and accompanying snail–nowhere to be found. Almost immediately, my boyfriend discovers one snail. I clean up the stones and the tank and get that frog in there, but the second one is missing, and so is the snail.

My boyfriend is checking everywhere for them. I’m trying to save the one that’s been located. Eventually, I turn on him and say, “The other one was eaten. The cats ate him.” I mean, at the time, the logic made sense to me–why knock over the tank to get to the scrumptious contents and not indulge in at least one?

So, an hour later, the snail is miraculously on the side of the tank. I imagine he buried himself in the rocks that were still in the knocked over tank before I lifted it back up and I pulled Idiot Move Number Two and didn’t check that gravel for him. Buy yay, we have a snail!

Here’s the crazy part: several hours later, my boyfriend goes to throw something away in his trashcan. The other frog is hidden in the shadowy crevices next to it. He immediately picks the frog up and hydrates him, and we spend a half an hour before bed picking off cat hair, lint, carpet residue, and other indentified contents on this frog’s body, continuously hydrating him.

Now both frogs, and the snail, despite my utter lack of intelligence, swim happily in their Frog-O-Sphere on my desk.

I thought it was a silly idea after the event to have ever even taken them home, but apparently that solution was not a sound one either. My boyfriend got into work today and one of his frogs, unfortunately, had passed away. He theorizes it might have been because his company shut the air conditioning off and the frog overheated. Now I’m paranoid about every weekend if that’s a potential hazard.

Thus, I name these frogs: Happy Miracle and Joyous Miracle. We’ll call the snail Superman.