The Frog in a Pond

My family and I used to go to this restaurant once a week when I was young.

I’d always order the same dessert—frog in a pond.

There was a real frog in there.

If they could survive in muddy puddles, surely they could live in jelly.

I could picture poor froggy now.

Crying, trapped, alone.

I had to free it.

Only problem was, by the time I’d finished my dinner, I hardly had any room for dessert.

As much as I tried, I could never reach the bottom of that tall glass.

Time after time, I’d leave the restaurant whispering apologies, until one day I decided: enough was enough.

I marched into that restaurant with a new sense of purpose.

After slurping down some spaghetti, I boldly pushed away the plate.

‘Aren’t you going to finish that?’ asked Mum.

‘No’. I had a frog to save.

When the dessert came out, I was ready. I gripped my spoon and dug in, mouthful after mouthful. Never stopping, never slowing.

Were there any spotty limbs waving for freedom? Not yet. Keep going.

At last, my spoon hit something. I dug around it carefully. It was brown. Maybe it was a toad?

Wait, I knew that face. This was none other than Freddo Frog! That great pretender. He tricked me into thinking he needed to be saved.

I had my revenge in the only way I knew how. I chomped that frog until he was no more than chocolatey mush in my mouth.

I would continue to eat frogs like this for a long time… until Mum explained to me the concept of an analogy.