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The Princess and the Frog

by

Justice Putnam

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By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.

-- Socrates

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She said she chose me because I was the best behaved in the whole pond. I guess those etiquette lessons my frog aunts taught me when I was a tadpole really helped. All those Saturday night Brown Derby dinners dressed in my little tadpole-sized frog tuxedo, my frog aunts in their pearls and gloves, all seated in our special Brown Derby frog booth, somehow all that prepared me for the chance of a frog lifetime; to be kissed by the most beautiful Princess in the world.

I must tell you, everything we frogs heard was true. The sun back-lit her dark red curls, her full ruby lips touched mine. I remember she tasted of lavender and orange. The transformation was magical; I was no longer the ugly frog. I became her handsome Prince standing tall and strong and happy!

Oh, sure. She had to change my wardrobe and make it more diverse, as a Prince’s wardrobe must be. I was mostly into turtlenecks because I thought it would hide my frog throat more. But she liked the open collar look, she said, because she liked how manly a strong neck was. I always thought my best feature were my legs! Such is the mystery of the most beautiful Princess in the world.

She insisted I grow my hair longer. I took to sporting a goatee and wearing little round sunglasses. I grew accustomed to jet lag on royal visits to her ancestral homes in Europe.

I became her Prince, but she seemed unhappy.

We had just returned from a weekend at the home of my best bullfrog friend. His property included some of the best mud baths in all of Sonoma County.

“Your frog friends are ill mannered and uncouth,” she sobbed, “they smack their lips when they eat and use terrible grammar. You must choose them or me and if you choose them, you will not be my Prince!”

I didn’t know that the spell could be reversed. I thought, once kissed and transformed, a Prince forever you would be.

“Are you serious?” my Bullfrog friend spit at me later when I told him of the ultimatum. “You think you’re a Prince? She’s too good for you, man. She’s way out of your league. Have you looked at yourself in the mirror? You might be a Prince, but in your eyes, not hers! What made you think you could keep a woman like that happy? I hate to hurt your feelings, but at least you have feelings to hurt!”

All of my frog friends practice “tough truth,” but knowledge of that has never lessened the sting of their observations.

A note sat on the table when I came through the door that hot afternoon. She had gone and would not be back. I went to the bathroom and looked at the mirror there.

I knew which fork to use for the salad and how to swirl a vintage red to check its legs. But there was no mistaking it.

I had always been a frog.

But now I was one with a goatee and little round sunglasses.

© 2007 by Justice Putnam
and Mechanisches-Strophe Verlagswesen