 |
| Sunny Side Up May 1, 2002 copyright 2002 by Kathleen Gibson Sparing a thought for the frog I don�t know how your spring thoughts are dished up, but mine are always served �avec grenouille� (with frog). Perhaps the peeper chorus in the sloughs is to blame for the merry leaps my mind makes at this time of year. A frog crashed my brother and sister-in-law�s outdoor anniversary party a few summers ago. Tiny, leaf-green, and determined to be the center of attention, the miniature jester sprang from grass to hand to leg to table to skirt, dancing jigs with the women and providing the children with their best game of tag all season. I can�t remember exactly when he left, but I recall that the party was much improved because of him, and not nearly as much fun after his departure. It�s like that with frogs. Even if you don�t like them, you can�t forget them. With apologies to the animal rights people, few science projects are as educational as the frog dissections once regularly performed in Grade 11 Biology classes. Most of our dissection specimens came pre-pickled, but when it was time to inspect the innards of frogs, our class was given the assignment of bringing in the game ourselves. Armed with nets and pails we advanced on a swamp near the school, following the bass voices of the bullfrogs and the eager chirps of spring peepers. In case you�ve never tried�frogs are more easily heard than caught. By the time the pond patriarch was securely in my net, I was the one who looked like the swamp creature and my sympathies for him had dissipated entirely. Good thing too�it could only have been my lust for vengeance which spurred me on to the cold-blooded murder and dissection that followed up in Classroom 11D. And on to the bizarre lunch following�frog�s legs, roasted to perfection over my Bunsen burner. Our most unflappable friends were enjoying Mother�s Day dinner out when Lynn noticed what she assumed were sunflower seeds in her Caesar salad. Funny, she thought, I�ve never known those to be in a Caesar salad. She looked closer, put down her fork. �Lloyd,� she said calmly, turning to her husband. �There�s a frog in my salad.� Lloyd bent over her plate, squinted, blinked, and sat back. �So there is,� he said. Their son, Shane, leaned over the table. Agreed�a frog indeed. They flagged the nearest waitress. �Uh, there�s a frog in this salad,� they said. The girl laughed�until the tiny spring peeper, precisely color-matched to the Romaine lettuce, shifted drunkenly under the nudge of a fork. Our friends weren�t charged for the salad�or the meal, which they left uneaten, rather than ask for a froggy�I mean doggy bag. A friend recently told me that a frog will stay put in a pan of water even as the water is gradually heated to boiling. There are definite drawbacks to being a frog, I thought.Then I wondered what �comfortable kettles� I�m sitting in. And prayed for the sense to know. You can respond to this column at [email protected] |