An Open Letter of Apology to the Frog I Roasted Alive in 1981.

Y'know, I've been thinking a lot in terms of personal and spiritual development, as men past the flower of youth are wont to do. I'm working on making amends to those I may have in some way wronged, etc., etc., and have come to the following, irrevocable conclusion: it's high time I said "sorry" to you, that frog I tossed into the grill in St. Louis in 1981.

Sure, I know what you're thinking, "well, bloody lot of good your remorse does for me now that my charred frog-shade soul wanders the bleak bogs of eternity." That's true, and a good point, but hey, not a whole heaping lot we can do about that now, is there? I mean, were I to presently discover an enchanted lamp with a genie popping out like a cork off cheap bubbly to grant me three wishes, I'd no doubt start with "hey, I need a time machine back to the Reagan administration so I can refrain from catching that slow and malgrown little frog and tossing it on the coals at my Uncle Wayne's house." Really, I would. But, problem is, I just haven't found that lamp, so we're just going to have to live with things (well, me anyway) as they stand. No sense being a crybaby, know what I'm saying?

And sure, being roasted alive on hot coals, no one to hear your plaintive little frog wail, was probably pretty nasty stuff. Hell, I've been burned enough with grease from the deep fryer to have a taste of what you went through. But you know what? I've never been slow and stupid enough to be collared by something 300 times my size, which in turn flung me into the barbecue and cackled with childish glee as I died an agonizing death. Must've sucked to be you, yeah?

But we're getting off track here. Sure, you were a pretty sorry excuse for a frog and all, and I derived enough diabolical amusement from fiendishly murdering you to probably warrant your hideous and grisly end, but let's get back to my apology. Hey, sorry about all those froglets you didn't get to spawn while you were busy cooking to a blackened husk. An additional sorry to you, any possible Mrs. Frog, for making you a widow by callously burning your husband to cinder and ash. I apologize to the greater amphibian community for taking such a fine and upstanding denizen from your ranks, laughing hysterically as his croaks for mercy from the hellish tortures of immolation fell on deaf ears. Let's let bygones be bygones, shall we?

Well, I'm really glad we had this talk, frog. I feel better already. No doubt, as your crispy spirit wanders the barren halls of forlorn frog hereafter, wailing and gnashing your little frog teeth, or whatever, you feel better too. It's time we put this behind us, derive a little closure from my sociopathic execution of you, engulfing you in flame like you were a protesting Tibetan monk. I mean, it's not like I really enjoyed your deliciously painful death more than any other maniacally gleeful eight-year-old boy would've, dig? I mean, I said I'm sorry already, you loathsome little ex-salmonella courier. What the hell else do you want from me? There's no sense in you being a hater here--it's not like I can reassemble your slimy frog molecules that I wickedly transformed into carbon and soot by annihilating you utterly on the white hot coals beneath the hot dogs and hamburgers. Please don't be an ingrate, okay?