AN ABSURD GRIMM BROTHERS TALE

THE UNGRATEFUL SON

or

THE BIG FAT BLUE FROG

A cautionary tale 

or

an absurd fabliau

by the Grimm Brothers

faithfully adapted by Sandra Dermark

on the sixteenth of April, two thousand fifteen.

Once upon a time, and a very good time it was, there were a young husband and wife, still childless (which, despite what you may believe after reading so many stories about childless heterosexual couples, plays no role in this tale), sitting on their porch.
It was the middle of the day.
And they had a roast chicken in between them on a little table, and they were going to eat it together.
Then, the husband suddenly saw a lone person coming down the lane, and he turned pale, and a shudder ran down his spine, and he took up the chicken on a platter and shouted to the wife:
"Quick! Let's hide it in the cupboard!"
"And why?", the young woman asked curiously.
"My... dad... is... coming!!!", her spouse stuttered, pale as a corpse, shivering like a flan out in the cold.
And thus, in stormed husband and wife with their roast chicken, and they rushed to the cupboard, opened its doors, put the dish in, closed the doors, shut them, and locked them.
And then they stormed out to the porch and sat down on their chairs ASAP, as if they never had rushed in.
And in stepped an elderly gentleman, with a striking resemblance to the young husband (which may have made the reader guess that this is our antihero's father, and none other, and congratulations to those who have guessed so!), and took up a third chair next to the couple.
And he said: "Long time no see, sonny boy! And you too, Lizzie! Nice to see you two still get along! Now where's the roasted chicken we were going to have?"
And the young man replied, pale and cold as a snowman: "Did you say chicken? Sorry, Dad, you don't remember we had agreed to have it on Sunday (and it was Thursday when the chap said this). Anyway, stay with us and have a drink and a chat for a while."
And the wife served each of them a gallon of Czech beer, and healths went round, and the father told stories from his youth and what life was like during the wars on the front, and both youngsters nearly fell asleep with the war tales' monotony (and with the good Czech beer as well), until sunset, when the old veteran sauntered off and returned to the Retirement Home for Veterans where he had his quarters.
And thus, the young husband and wife were left with each other once more.
And only then did he venture back into the kitchen to open the cupboard and get the roast chicken out, since now they had delayed its intake to supper time.
But, when he opened the cupboard, our chap suddenly became pale as his own shirt, cold and rigid as an ice statue, for, in place of the chicken, he found a
BIG
FAT
BLUE 
FROG,
a
LIVE
ONE,
on the tray where the roast should have been.
And thus, the young fellow concluded that he must be intoxicated.
But that was not the case, and, what's more (and more strange), the BIG FAT BLUE FROG was real. It lived, it breathed, and it suddenly wrapped its amazingly elastic and amazingly sticky four-foot tongue around his neck and shoved its face into its basketball-sized maw.
And he put his hands around the FROG's cold and humid big fat blue sides, convinced now that it was REAL (and who should not be?), convinced that his head was not a bug, yet the obnoxious amphibian would not come off as easily as it had got on.
And thus, the young chap called for his wife's aid. Only that his voice was quite muffled, his face being inside a frog's throat and all that, so, instead of "Lizzie!", what came forth could be more adequately rendered as "HMPH-hmph!"
And in stormed Lizzie. And, upon seeing her spouse with a FROG stuck on his face (which was not particularly dashing, so the presence of the amphibian rendered him better-looking, in a certain way), her first thoughts were actually the same as those of her spouse before getting attacked. Id est, that she must certainly have overindulged in ethylic consumption.
Obviously, touching the FROG convinced her of its existence as well.
And thus, she fetched a crowbar, and, applying all the strength she could muster, she tried to free her husband.
As she did so, she gritted her teeth while shouting: "My husband's head is not a bug!"
But it was in vain.
And, in the end, she was exhausted.
When Lizzie had recovered her strength, she cast the crowbar aside and seized a four-pound mallet and its matching chisel, and, thus armed, resolved to chisel out the amphibious foe.
It was to as much avail as the crowbar attempt.
And then, seeing that there was no other way but their ultima ratio regum, she took her spouse, FROG and all, out into their garden, and there, having rushed into the cellar before (I had forgotten to explain that Lizzie stormed into the cellar!), she resorted to their ten-pound artillery shell full of trinitrotoluene.
It was a memento from our FROG-faced young chap's veteran father.
And the trinitrotoluene went BOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The next day, both husband and wife, critically injured, were rushed to the local doctor. The BIG FAT BLUE FROG remained unhurt, without even a single burn. The respectable physician, convinced that he was sober and that he had seen such cases before in his career, told the female convalescent as soon as she had recovered:
"Pardon me, Elizabeth, but your spouse happens to suffer from a critical case of amphibious visageopathy".
We all know how much doctors love to use fancy scientific words to stun and confuse the lay folk. So it came as no surprise that Lizzie replied with the only word: "What?"
"Your spouse happens to host an individual of the species Hyla visageivora, a female to judge from its size, and such a symbiosis will endure to the demise of one of the symbiotic species." For, aside from a physician and surgeon, he was also a herpethologist. Id est, a reptile and amphibian researcher (which is a human researcher studying these animal classes, and not a researcher pertaining to both or any of the latter classes).
"And how will I get it... her off?"
And thus, the doc gave Lizzie and her husband the following prescription:

Recipe: Meat. Any kind of meat.
Mode of application: Feed the FROG with meat twice each day, at 13:00 sharp and at 20:00 sharp.

And so they did.
And, needless to say, they lived happily ever after, had many children, no social or economic issues, and led a life as happy as could be in spite of the FROG that clung to the chap's face, and which was always well fed, until it died and finally came off. It came as a great sorrow for the whole family, more than the demise of the old veteran, since this clan boasted of the most unusual pet in the land and had become international celebrities, shaking hands with crowned heads and media stars alike.
And thus, the death of the FROG appeared in dozens of newspapers, memorials were erected to her (the foremost, on her grave), and the children of her host created a charity with all their wealth, calling it the BIG FAT BLUE FROG TRUST.

THE END.