Never Eat Something Bigger Than Your Head

That's the moral. Here's the story:

My frog died. Little princess came and me this morning while I was brushing my teeth and said frog was dead in the fish tank. Now he has “played” dead before so I kept asking little princess “are you sure?”

“Yes, he’s floating on top with a dead fish.”

Well, the dead fish thing didn’t even register. I went to the livingroom and was about to poke him (official measure used to insure something is actually dead) when I noticed the dead fish. It was half in my frog’s mouth.

Apparently he tried to eat a fish (no clue as to whether it was alive or dead at the time) that was almost as big as him. It was stuck in his throat and he must have choked to death.

I went and got a coffee cup to scoop him up. I guess I was thinking, maybe, I could pull the fish out and maybe he’d be ok. But the fish was firmly stuck in my frog and the body pulled off without the fish’s head. I think it must have happened during the night several hours before we discovered them.

Little princess wanted to flush the frog, which is the customary way to dispose of dead stuff from the fish tank. And while the frog was less than one inch long when I purchased him, he is/was about 4-5 inches long as of this morning. I nixed the idea due to plumbing issues. I asked her to take him to the mulch pile and bury him, which is where the larger of our dead pets reside, many bunnies, a couple cats, a guinea pig, some chickens, etc.

I go back to brushing my teeth. I have to start over because I can’t remember where I left off. I’m almost ready to go and I realize little princess hasn’t come back in. She’s about to miss the bus. I run to the back door and holler for her.

“I can’t find a shovel and I’m trying to dig the hole with my hands,” she sniffles. Cripes child, just throw him over the fence and catch the bus.

So ends my frog’s life, not flushed, but neither buried, rather tossed over the fence. Many people have marveled over frog’s life while standing in my entry way waiting for a child or paperwork or even girl scout cookies. They were amazed by his size, his sightlessness, his albino color, his toe nails with their black tips, his ability to live totally under water.

I spent many an hour watching his graceful underwater ballet. He seemed to dance for my amusement at times. He could balance on one toe on top of a plant. He could zip back and forth rather quickly. Sometimes I would call to anyone home, “come see what the frog is doing!” Sometimes no one was interested enough to come look. Now he will only dance in my mind.

So long frog, you were cool!