Tree Frog Crusoe

A few days ago, I took the family to the mall to enjoy the free (I repeat, FREE) indoor playground there. After an hour of play we returned to our van in the parking lot and loaded up. The kids were loaded up and I was moving to get into the driver's seat when I saw something strange on the black Denali SUV next to us. It looked like a mushroom growing on the side of the vehicle, but I knew it couldn't be that and took a closer look. Upon closer inspection, I realized it was a tree frog...an honest to goodness tree frog stuck to the side of a GMC Denali in the parking lot of a mall in Independence, MO.

How in the world does an animal indigenous to Central and South America find itself on the side of a vehicle in the middle of the midwest? Was it holding on to the side of that SUV for a long interstate road trip to the mall or did someone just randomly pick a car to stick a frog to in the mall parking lot? The only way I could understand how the frog was feeling was to picture myself hanging on to the side of a rickshaw in the middle of a Vietnamese farming village without really knowing how I got there. What would I eat? Where would I live? Do they have air conditioning?

I felt bad for the little guy and removed him from the Denali and placed him in a tree in one of the few green areas in the parking lot, all while he continuously leaked some sort of fluid on me in some sort of defensive maneuver. I figured every little bit helps. Until a raccoon eats him...