Basement Biology

I was getting my hair cut the other day and the subject of flooded basements came up, because it was pouring like a SOB, and I mentioned this place I used to rent that flooded in the basement if a puffy white cloud went by. It was so wet down there so consistently that once I went down to do some laundry and heard a resonant "ribbit...ribbit...ribbit" and saw a frog come hopping out to greet me, perfectly happy, liked he lived there, which he clearly did.

My haircut person is great—you tell her stuff like this and she bursts out "Noooooooo!!!!!!!" in this great way—first the firecracker explosion, and then the long trailing off. Often she sort of staggers backward when she says it.

Anyway, we talked about it and concluded that this could be considered a kind of guideline. Many basements flood under extreme conditions, but if it's viable frog habitat down there, you know you have a chronic problem.