The Exploding Toads Of Hamburg

This is a story I posted on Boggart Blog three years ago, before I was at Gather. I exhume it now because a) its funny; b) the phenomenon is happening again I hear.

Wild life experts around the German city of Hamburg have been baffled by the bizarre phenomenon of the Exploding Toads. Amphibians returning to a toad breeding ground, a pond outside the city have been observed to swell up to twice their normal size and spontaneously explode, (this activity should not be confused with spontaneous combustion, something which only happens to Spinal Tap drummers.

Eye witnesses report that the toads are just crawling along, progressively swelling and making strange, untoadlike noises before they suddenly go "pop" or rather "phfft" as more reliable accounts put it. The force of the explosion propels toad entrails several feet into the air.

"I have never seen such a thing, my trousers were splattered with toad innards," said Werner Smolnek of the Hamburg Nature Protection Society.

Possible explanations offered by scientists range from rational "the toads have eaten discarded carbides which would react with gut acids to give off acetylene gas," to just plain silly "air pressure is lowered by passing traffic causing the toads to swell up to fill the vacuum," to the "we can't explain it so it can't be happening" school of scientific thinking; "the toads have been attacked by seagulls, passers by see the shattered remains and jump to silly conclusions," say the scientists. 

The dismissive attitude is grossly insulting to the estimable Mr. Smolnek of course as it casts doubt on his integrity or suggests he is using mind - bending drugs. As Werner was not the only witness to toad explosions we must assume the scientists have jumped to the conclusion they were all on mind bending drugs. If that is the case can someone tell us what drug they were on and where we can get some.

Certain species of toad secrete body fluids that have hallucinatory properties of course, but only if you lick their tears. This begs the question who made the toads cry and how, unless the poor creatures find the prospect of being licked distressing.

The seagull theory is preposterous enough to satisfy old rent-a-sceptic James Rhandi although this gentleman will always try to prove that mysterious events are the result of a conjuring trick.

We should be glad of events like the Exploding Toads of Hamburg, they help to fulfil a very basic human need by providing irrelevant but irresistibly fascinating topics for pub and bar-room conversations. Exploding toads is a welcome change from the usual menu of ghosts, UFO sightings, the Bermuda Triangle (not to be confused with the Brazilian Landing Strip which is an endlessly fascinating topic for men), the philosophical sayings of Zaphod Beeblebrox and the likelihood of Elvis reappearing on his seventy-fifth birthday.

I guess the story has not reached America because if it had some "charismatic Christian" would have announced that somehow a spate of exploding toads foretells the coming of The End of Days. An people would believe that preacher although all the story might possibly prove is that God is a childbrain who thinks its kewl to stick a drinking straw up an amphibians bottom hole and blow. When I was a lad some of the farm boys would play that sick game. I did not join in, city boys are smart, we know that there is no easy way to tell if your frog has the squits.

The frog inflating game pre-empts any suggestion of divine involvement however, only a complete moron would prefer to spend his time putting the divine wind up toads' bottoms than sorting out third world poverty, disease in Africa, overpopulation in Asia, giving us a cure for A.I.D.S. or ending the war in Iraq.

But one theory is as good as another so what is your theory, (remember this can turn into a great conversation piece.) I go for Aliens myself. They are planting their microscopic spores in the livers of toads. When the parasite undergoes the metamorphosis from larva to imago it becomes a creature of pure energy and bursts out of its hosts body to join it fellows as they continue their project to colonise the Earth.

Well for silliness it beats the seagulls theory hands down.