What Pisses Me Off: Frog thieves!

I was sitting in the lounge room chatting to Mark when I heard Mum’s scooter coming up the side of the house. She was beeping the horn and going way too fast at a staggering speed of 10km an hour. She jumped off the scooter and raced in through the back door, carefully pushed herself up off the scooter and shuffled in through the back door, but it was a determined shuffle. She was visibly upset when she yelled “I am so pissed off! Some thieving mongrel has nicked my frog”!

I couldn’t believe it. My first thought was “Why the hell would anybody want to steal a frog?”; Mum has had that frog for about 20 years. It had a lot of sentimental value and it sat guard over the bromeliads in the front garden for years. It was a bit of a landmark and it was liquid nailed to a tree stump. Before you start dobbing me in for animal cruelty, the frog was 20kg of solid cement and we are all quite stunned that someone would steal it. I could not imagine a teenager trying to lift it – try and smoke it maybe. Whoever took it was strong and dumb because the bromeliads that the frog was guarding were a lot more valuable than the frog, unless of course there is a black market for cement frogs.

Mum had handpainted the frog in her own unique style so I am pretty sure he would have had a paint job by now. Maybe it is sitting in a garden near you, all freshly painted waiting for the football to start or maybe it’s waiting to be sold at the next flea market. Maybe it is experiencing its first road trip! The trauma of it all is getting too much for Mum.

I tried to get the local paper interested and I got no response. I couldn’t believe their lack of interest! What is wrong with people? This is big news, it’s all over the internet! OK, I put it there, but that is not the point. I want the thief to return the frog unharmed and no questions will be asked. Mainly because I have no clue what I should ask a frog thief.

I got Mum some cardboard to make a sign. Mum put a lot of thought into the wording of that sign; I nailed it to a tree out the front. She had this crazy idea that word about the sign would get back to the thief and he would be overcome with guilt and return the frog.

I have seen people stopping and taking photos and laughing at the sign. These people should be out looking for the frog but sadly life is not full of tall spinach and butterflies. But after just checking the letterbox and finding a note from the bloody frog, apparently his life is now full of tall spinach and butterflies because he is living on a cattle property over the border. It’s not really the theft that is pissing me off, it’s more the realisation that a cement frog is on holiday and I’m not!

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