Bethany Cutkomp on “Forget the Warts” 

As an alumna of a rural Missouri university, I often get questioned about what we did for fun in a town that small. There wasn’t much to do outside of class and extracurriculars, so students often took creative approaches to fabricate their own entertainment. However, spontaneous moments of leisure proved to be most memorable. In the dead of night, phone calls from friends used to startle me out of a drowsy haze.

“Put your shoes on,” they’d say. “We’re going train-watching.”

Visiting the railroad tracks was a popular activity for locals and college students alike. We drove twenty minutes outside of town, past field crops, down gravel roads, and deep within the woods. Sparse residency allowed the stars to emerge to their fullest potential. On moonless nights, the milky way stretched over our heads. My friends and I sprawled on our backs, exchanging idle conversation under constellations we didn’t know the names of.

I’d realized how alive a Midwestern night felt when giving it my full attention. The damp ground and surrounding foliage stirred at our feet. Insect chirps and owl discourse echoed in a place undisturbed by human activity. Moving among such animation kept me awake despite my body’s internal clock.

When springtime rolled around, the toads emerged. Bellows and croaks materialized from all directions, impossible to ignore. Equipped with the mere light of our phones, my friends and I set off to play matchmaker. These creatures were a delight to seek out. Their stocky build made them fairly grabbable, and they accepted their fate with slack expressions that cracked us up.

“Now kiss,” we’d declare, pairing our finds with one another. The toads’ indifference toward the situation only made it funnier.

There was something that felt forbidden about it all—the world was asleep and a handful of us were out here being gremlins in the woods. During those moments of slogging around in the mud giggling, I’d forget we weren’t children anymore. Older adults looked down on us for our behavior, warning us that our skin would break out into warts. The risk was worth the fun.

I wrote “Forget the Warts” as a nod to the small joys that reside among the outdoors. This nightly ritual gave me a reason to roll out of bed when I was at my lowest. When channeling built-up anxiety into playful curiosity, my prior worries didn’t seem as significant as I made them out to be.

By the way, contracting warts from toads is an age-old myth. The lumps present on their skin are glands and are not transmittable to humans. While we should be wary of too much contact with amphibians—our differing skin compositions are not compatible and may cause irritation both ways—human warts are only contagious among other humans.

Remember that. You’re more likely to catch warts from your boyfriend than your frog prince. As long as you handle your nocturnal friends in moderation, feel free to be a goblin of the night with the friends you cherish most.