I really thought I’d written up my story of the African Frog. I was just looking for it, and it’s not here. I will rewrite it now, because this is one of the key mythical tales of my life.

When I was a young boy living in Brockway, Pennsylvania I had a beautiful tank of tropical fish. My folks would occasionally take me to the pet store over in Dubois and let me pick out a new fish to add to my tank. On one of our trips I spotted an African Frog, and I instantly knew I could no longer settle for some ordinary fish. We brought the African Frog home in a plastic bag and placed it in the aquarium overnight to acclimate. The next day we  released him into the tank. He seemed pretty happy swimming around in there with the angelfish, swordtails and neon tetras. A few days later, though, we noticed one of the guppies was missing. And the next day, another. Each day another fish disappeared. Eventually, the only thing left in the tank was the African Frog. Then the African Frog disappeared, too. A few weeks later, we found him under the bed, mummified in a ball of lint.