Frog Prince Strikes Back.

The trash bag which was probably checked out after dinnertime by Orange, my kuya’s cat, starts to move again. It’s three hours past dinner already and I have a feeling it’s not the cat. Orange, Cookie, and ‘kitten’ (my sibs don’t know what to call it yet except for its current biological stage) were already out of the kitchen door, probably kicked by my mom whose mood swings can make any cat go crazy. The noise of the trash bag during the night has been frequent since a couple of weeks ago. And I noticed that it spoils my nights of trying to seek comfort from the entertainment prime time viewing brings. We live in a small house and the living room where I watch tv is just two or three cartwheels away from the kitchen. The noise of the trash bag near the kitchen door, a beckoning of another night of thought disruption, is also the precursor of my odd wariness. 

I hear no “kokak, kokak” yet I know he’s there in the kitchen. Frog prince strikes back.  He has been inside the house twice or thrice last year and it was such a misfortune to have first discovered him in the bathroom at exactly 12 midnight. You see, the only frog I liked was Kerokerokeroppi (did I spell it right, Sanrio fans?) and my last close encounter with a real frog was six years ago, during the dissecting activity in Biology class. I remember being so grossed out that I didn’t really participate in it. For me, insects are more interesting than frogs, albeit biologists’ claim that amphibians, having survived many global changes during the 100 million years they have been on earth, surpassed even the extinction of the dinosaurs and the age of the mammals. The thing which came into mind that night when I first saw frog prince was to freeze myself, as if I saw a snake. I thought that if I moved, it would attack me. I held my urge to hit the toilet and thought of what to do next. But because I was very threatened, I ran upstairs and disturbed my then sleeping dad. He woke up to see me crying helplessly and when he asked why, he was suddenly enraged. And it’s not the frog, mind you.

 I hated frog prince since then. He was the reason why I was given a reprimand, a thing I believe I didn’t deserve on a midnight. Dad thought it’s illogical for a 20 year old to cry over a ‘petty’ thing, like seeing a frog in the bathroom, for instance. I thought that that night was the end of seeing the frog prince. Until he came back two weeks ago, and with revenge. To top that, the rest of the family has been making fun of my ’plight’, as I call it. In fact, they’ve been wondering why it’s only me who sees this frog. They wake up in the morning and laugh together at my “There’s a frog in the kitchen” note posted either on the floor or on the fridge. At breakfast, I would receive pestering frog-jokes; they wouldn’t believe in me because they haven’t really seen it. Well, my little brother did once, when he slept late on a Friday night. Maybe he thought our driving-away-the-frog-out-of-Ate’s-sight was just another adventure-packed dream. Had I been endowed with the skill of communicating with animals a la Mowgli (The Jungle Book), with an amphibian to be exact, I wouldn’t have second thoughts of speaking to this frog whose presence ruins the routine of a nocturnal beast. I had become used to reading and pondering on my papers after the Korean soaps or even the late night news. So, I don’t like the idea of a frog jumping around while I’m in a serious studying mode. I don’t want to see it while I’m making myself another cup of coffee; I don’t want to see it in the bathroom floor while peeing. What is it with our kitchen anyway, aside from the frog-can-enter space between the door and the floor, that makes frog prince come back EVERY NIGHT? Doesn’t he have a day-off, or a night-off, for that matter? 

 I wish I could shove him out but unfortunately, this frog prince does not play the game fairly. He makes sure everyone is asleep, except for me, before he happily skips from one place to another. He likes it when I start to cry over his presence, because he knows I feel defeated. And I really am. After ranting “Yawa kang baki-a ka! Gawas dinha!” in a lower volume while trying to make him come out of his damn hiding place by hitting the floor with a broom (although I really didn’t think this strategy works), I would give up and start to gather all of my studying paraphernalia up to my room. My room, by the way, had a problem: it is lit only by a small night lamp that emits red light as my kuya refused to replace the dysfunctional light bulb which was supposed to accompany me in my late night reading (that is, if I am not in the mood for studying in the dining table downstairs). Of course, in less than ten minutes, princess in distress would fall off to Dreamsville. Unsurprisingly, in the morning, I would wake up not to a happy ending, but to another morning of unfinished papers and readings.  Once, this frog prince had the nerve to bring a friend inside. Perhaps it was his sidekick; it was hopping next to him on our kitchen floor. Imagine how I almost choke after realizing right in the middle of drinking a glass of water that there were two frogs inside the house: one was bigger than the other. What was he thinking? He was acting like a paying border that had the license to bring friends and let them sleep over.  

A level-up. My hatred towards frog prince jumps to a higher degree, just as he jumps more comfortably around. 

“Maybe he’s waiting for you to pick him up and kiss him”, a friend of mine told me over one lunch. Yeah right, I must have dropped my golden ball somewhere. The thought seems a contrast to my own reality. I am the recipient of a dozen immaterialized promises. Sad thing is, although I have had enough of it, I’m still living a life of hopes. Blame it on the Grimm Brothers. If only that frequent visitor in guise of a frog would turn out to be this guy I’ve discreetly been looking at in class the moment I pick him up and kiss him, then maybe the case would be closed. If not, I’ll submit a motion of reconsideration to the higher courts. Then things would turn out better. But like what my dad said, I am 20 years old. It’s illogical to believe in such things.  The main difference between me and the frog prince is that he hops after the promise while I just continue hoping for it, not working on several things to make it come true for myself. The act of making it come true has to be innate from the person who ‘promised’. If not, then it wasn’t really a promise at all, just a mere utterance to fill in for those broken statements, for the ear-shattering silence between individuals. Needless to say, I’m left in air, perhaps in different levels of acceleration.  

Well, I guess I have no choice right now but to get used to the way frog prince defeats me in terms of space occupancy.  He makes me become unfamiliar of the field I thought was my expertise.  If you happen to know a modern day Mowgli, please have him contact me right away before I spray Raid the next time I see him. I’ve read somewhere that amphibians’ skin is permeable to airborne gases. Inasmuch as I don’t want this to sound like a threat to the world’s biodiversity, I am desperate. I really want to discover the truth behind why frog prince strikes back.