Please Bug Me

By Gale Ashcroft
Once upon a time there was a big old bullfrog that lived in a beautiful pond surrounded by tall bulrushes and full of lush, green lily pads. It was a wonderful place to live.

Now, this particular frog had lived to be very old because he was blessed with extraordinary hearing.  Because his hearing was so good he had escaped being eaten until he had grown very big and very old. In fact, he was so big that he didn’t have to worry about being eaten by birds anymore. The only things that could eat him now were snakes, and he could always tell when a snake was coming because he could hear it rustling in the bulrushes, and then he would hide.

Day after day this big old bull frog sat on a lily pad in the middle of the pond and listened
for the rustling of the bulrushes. Of course, sometimes the wind would blow through the rushes, and then the bullfrog would hide unnecessarily, but at least he was safe. The problem was, since he no longer had to watch out for birds swooping down to eat him he had a lot of extra time on his hands, and he began to get bored and grumpy.

Now there were lots of other frogs that lived in this pond, and many bugs. Every one of them made a different kind of noise, and it really began to annoy the old bullfrog. First it was the crickets chirping that made him cross. The more he listened to hear the rushes rustle, the louder the crickets chirped.  "Be quite!" the frog would croak, and for a little while the crickets would be still, but pretty soon they couldn’t help themselves and they would start to chirp again. Then the cicadas would hum and the bees would buzz, and even the lady bugs made their own kind of sounds. It drove the bullfrog crazy!

"Stop making so much noise!" he croaked, "I can’t hear if the bulrushes are rustling!" But of course the bugs couldn’t stay quiet forever, and the bullfrog got crankier and crankier.

One day he was totally fed up with all the noise in his pond. He was hopping up and down on one of the big lily pads, shouting at the bugs, when a great big heron flew over his pond and landed in a tree at the edge of the water. He watched the bullfrog jumping with interest, wondering if his beak could open wide enough to swallow him.  He realized that the frog was too big, but he still found it entertaining watching the frog have a hissy fit. Finally, when the bullfrog stopped to catch his breath, the heron called down to him.

"What are you making all that fuss about?" the heron asked. "You look pretty stupid jumping up and down on that lily pad, you know."

The bullfrog looked up and glared at the heron. "What do you mean I look stupid?" he croaked. "I’m trying to keep these darned bugs quiet down here. They’re driving me crazy, and they’re so noisy I can’t listen to hear if a snake is coming."

The heron cocked his head on one side and listened to the bugs chirping and buzzing, then he shook his head. "They don’t sound very loud to me, at least not any louder than usual. You need to back off and leave them alone."

"Back off!" roared the frog. "What do you mean I need to back off? I’m not the one making all this racket! I’m just doing my job listening for snakes. It’s these bugs that are the problem!"

"You’d be amazed," the heron replied wisely. "You’re best friends are usually the folks who bug you the most." Then he lifted his wings and gracefully soared into the blue sky.

"You’re crazy," muttered the frog as he watched the heron fly away. "I hate these bugs and won’t be happy until they are all far away from here." So he kept on yelling and screaming at the bugs until finally they did all move away to a different, nicer pond.

You might think the frog would have been happy then, but he wasn’t. Now when he sat on his lily pad listening for the bulrushes to rustle all he could hear were the other frogs, croaking and splashing around in the water, and that started to drive him crazy!

"Shut up!" he croaked at the frogs, but they didn’t of course. Day after day the old bullfrog got crankier and crankier, and to tell you the truth, day after day the other frogs got tireder and tireder of being yelled at, until finally they too, decided to go find a nicer pond in which to live.

At last the bullfrog had the pond all to himself.  "Now, that’s better," he thought. "That dumb old heron didn’t know a thing about what he was saying. None of those folks that were bugging me were my friends at all."

So, the bullfrog sat in the middle of his lily pond and listened for the bulrushes to rustle, and he listened, and he listened. Usually he didn’t hear a thing, but once in a while a breeze would come up, and then the bullfrog would jump into his pond and hide. After a while, since he didn’t have to listen hard because there were no other sounds to distract him, that old bullfrog began to get used to hearing the rushes rustling in the breeze, and it stopped scaring him. In fact, he got so used to hearing that one sound that he would doze off and not even wake up when the wind began to blow through the rushes.

One day, a great big old snake slithered up to the lily pond. He made a horrible noise gliding through the bulrushes, but the frog was sound asleep and he didn’t even notice. The snake saw the old frog sitting out there in the middle of the pond, and he slid right into the water and swam up next to the bullfrog, but still the frog slept. Just as the snake lifted his head out of the water the bullfrog opened his eyes, and as the snake gulped him down the frog thought, "Man! I wish there had been someone around to keep me awake!" Then he remembered the heron’s words, and finally understood that the folks who bugged him the most actually had been his best friends, after all.