Windows

I look through windows at frog ornaments. Browsing through magazines or visiting people in their homes I notice the polished frog of marble in an exhibition or the silver one and the plaster chipped frog resting in a grove of pot plant leaves.

I chuckle ironically and provide a special thought - however fond - on frogs who look as comfortable as this lounger in a local window display; if only I could get my hands on you.

Why in particular?

Years ago I wrote a frog joke as a writing exercise. I uploaded it to an English language (puns) website or lost it in an email, either somewhere I cannot recall. Unbeknowns to me for years it went viral.

Myself, I don't tell jokes other than one I read in a sporting magazine. I discourage anybody from sending me circulating email jokes.

The one person I recall I told and who giggled a lot over it was Doug, a dear neighbour and friend (d.). The years went by. I was busy including facilitating groups of creative writers

When I discovered in recent years it is famous in some circles let alone went all over the place I was so acutely self conscious I truly felt I wanted to die.

A while has gone by and what I have seen however, for all its variations a lot of people get it and they come together over it, tell it, don't change it a great deal, dress up and act it, film it, have made satirical comedy, discuss it, teach it, some love it, others can it; it is used as comedy in church sermons, told at firies dinners including at the presentation of awards to heroes and no doubt in prisons, bars, banks, lunch rooms, in streets and I know a "hippy" on a boat a few years ago told it to some people on one side of the world whereas he heard it on t'other. I only draw a line in the sand in my mind when I see some people have changed a few words and claimed it as their own including illustrated it lamely and sell it in anthologies of their work .... albeit some peeps have made a total abomination of it. Some peeps who have loaded it to websites selling motor cars and any other commodity anybody could think of are making more than a unfair amount of money out of it.

You've got to be born to it I have decided or have special support systems to roll with the chances of risk. I have developed, however, a giant fondness for the out and out fans of this joke because I have read about, see and have heard their gentle sincerity. I have added a link here to one of the diverse places this joke has been told or rather where an attempt has been made to tell it.

A family in a car somewhere in the world

Oh, yes, and another place it has been told is by a famous Australian at a cricket match at the 'Gabba in Brisbane during a Test Series 2005/2006 Match between the Sri Lankans and the Australians. Now his rendition is very almost word for word as I wrote it laboriously piecing together diverse elements that might tickle funny bones in the privacy of their own five-minute lunchtime of fame. I referred for practice admitting it (so embarrassed) to my landlord some time earlier this year/end of last that I had discovered a joke I wrote was known world wide and he said' O, is that the one that starts...o, yes, my son has it on his mobile. It was told at the cricket. That's an old joke.'

I tell ya. :)