Once, just once, in all his life,
The frog he got his wish,
Namely, that for just one day,
He would become a fish
Of course, his wish was put to,
Some fairy godmother type,
Though she thought the frog would wish to be,
A prince, with all that hype
But no, the frog was adamant,
A fish was what he’d be,
Living underwater,
To see what he could see
“But hang on, wait a minute,”
The fairy she did state,
“You go under water now,
This wish it seems you waste!”
“Not quite, my erstwhile flying Gran,
Not quite, for you will see,
To be a fish, a big one mind,
Is my thing to be
My reasoning is twofold,
First I like their scales,
But secondly, the main thing is,
To be swallowed by a whale
Then I could have a good look for,
My lost tadpole, Fred,
He went missing on a school trip,
Swallowed up with his mate Ed
So if I were able to get inside,
That big whale’s tummy,
I could rescue Fred and Ed,
And bring them back to mummy”
“Well that’s all well and good you know,
But how do you propose,
To escape from the whales cavernous guts,
From under its big nose?”
“Don’t worry about that old girl,”
With familiarity the frog replied,
“I have a cunning plan you see,
To ensure we all survive
When the lads are rescued,
And safe within my care,
I will release the sneezing powder,
I won at the frogland fair
Then the whale will blast us out,
In one almighty gust,
And we will all be homeward bound,
With little or no fuss”
“Well that’s an honourable thing to do,
Not selfish and quite daring,
Take it your wish is granted,
For being kind and caring”
And so it was on one fine day,
The rescue did take place,
All went well, they did escape,
Out of the whale’s face
Yet there was an epilogue,
The event was duly marked,
Unfortunately our now free trio,
Were gobbled up by a shark
- MIKE STEEDEN - 
Brought a tear to my eye.
Awww! I see that Mr. Frog is very focused and very unselfish! (coulda just wished for the tads to come back, but nooooo… 🙂
Cheers – comment much appreciated. Shame about the ending I guess!
the best fairy tales reflect the ugly truth
True.
The Brothers Grimm have nothing on you, my friend! Excellent verse, though the ending was sorrowful. But at least they went together. 🙂
I tend to always through a bit of death or misfortune in my kids verse – things can’t always have a happy ending I guess.
Almost all the “real” fairy tales end badly (before Disney changed them) and we all survived as kids. You did an AMAZINGLY wonderful job! (I still think you need to print them in a book, too.)
Not long after we got rid of the business in 2008 I did put a book together of children’s verse – my daughter Ellie did the artwork yet as is typical of me I couldn’t face the hassle of publishing/marketing etc. as it would feel like ‘work’ – the very thing I had chosen to give up. Odd though since I started blogging last October I have enjoyed writing – certainly I have written about things that it never crossed my to write about ever before. For example I woke in the early hours per usual and had an idea for a skit about Jack the Ripper’s old Mum! Weird or what – I might write it up as it made me laugh thinking about how the story could pan out.
Well, with all the self-publishing platforms these days, it wouldn’t be as much work as it would have been in 2008, and what a special project to have you and your daughter’s name on the cover! (And then I could interview you two!) There’s a guy who wrote a book for his niece that self-pubbed and the story he tells about WHY is just so incredible. (Check the video out at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/unclejoe/they-dont-make-books-about-uncles). You have such talent writing, it’s a shame to keep it all to yourself. I was serious earlier, too, about you and Shirley writing a fictionalized version of some of your PI cases. I bet that would sell in an instant.
I can’t wait to read the Jack the Ripper’s Mum skit! See, the very idea of that is extremely creative, indeed.
I will check that out Rachel – maybe have a good think while G looks after the house and Shirley and I are in a little secluded cottage in France at the back end of next week. I haven’t had a good ‘think’ in a while. I think that when we quit work – it was killing me (literally) I just developed an aversion to anything I didn’t like doing. Maybe could give it ago. I do remember once accidentally putting Shirley in my car forgetting about an armed lunatic who was after me in particular. Spotting my car he thought it was me and Shirl had to drive like the wind to escape him – there’s a lot more to it than that although she did have the right royal hump with me at the time!
WOW! My gosh what a story! When I used to be a paralegal, there were times clients threatened the attorney and sometimes us paralegals when they didn’t get a settlement in a timely manner. One such man threatened to kill himself if I didn’t get his check right away. He committed suicide that weekend and his wife came in the following week wanting to kill me. Literally. The sad thing was, his check came in just a few days later and was then held up in probate because he was dead. People are sick! At any rate, I DO hope you decide to write. Have a wonderful holiday if I don’t get to talk to you again before you get back. And a safe drive! 😀
Cheers Rachel – we’re not actually off until Thursday for this is just a short 4 day break this time. It gives George and a mate of his who has also just finished uni a chance for a bit a space here while we simply unwind. We are hoping to buy a new house with a decent sized garden – presently we have a town house which is no use to Shirl as she is gardening mad – in the next few months so a break before the trauma of moving felt like a good plan.
Anyway you plainly have some stories to tell yourself! My problem with these kind of stories is how to make them ‘funny.’ If I can’t chuckle writing them down I worry they may feel like a chore. I will have to have that good think I was on about.
Oh, good, so I’ll get to talk to you more before you go. 🙂 Is George done with school for good now? Jeremy asked about him again yesterday and said, “Tell him to hit me up.” I told him I thought G had a couple of weeks left of school. Where you live, can Shirl garden all year round or do you get a cold winter? As you can tell by my blog the last week, I HATE moving. LOL! My trouble with making those kinds of stories funny is that too many people think “Aww, you poor girl” when I am hoping for a laugh instead. Like they did about my bad landlord stuff last week. I mean, it sucked when it happened, but I think it’s hysterical now that I look back. I mean, what kind of jerks shit on the floor before they move out? And what kind of moron was I to trust them? That IS funny, and I don’t have a problem laughing at myself, but other people seem to just want to feel sorry. That said, up through Tuesday, I think my stories will have the same dull effect, but starting Wednesday, I tried to do things a little differently, so I hope they get a laugh. As for your stories, you are a very humorous man, so I think you will be able to pull it off. You have a biting wit that is so intelligent, that you have to think about it, which makes it that much more interesting. Fittingly, we call that “British humor” here, though you just probably call it “humor”. 😉
George is now finished yet must wait 2/3 months to hear what level degree he has achieved which is a nuisance when you need to get a job or decide to work for yourself. Presently I’ve promised to keep off his back for a few days so that he can unwind yet next week when we are back I shall get him to contact your son who has plainly ‘been there done it.’ Maybe they can impart a bit bit of knowledge/know how at each other. G put together an album – another one – for part of his final year. Wrote it; sung it; played all the instruments; mixed it and mastered it. It is very good yet he still thinks too critically of himself. You never know that American ‘go for it’ should inspire. Jeremy might be interested to know G has worked on a lot of interactive HTML5 web stuff producing fret boards and Max/MSP sound art machines and that sort of stuff – whatever that is!
As to gardening our winter’s don’t really allow 12 months outside yet back in Devon with her big garden she always found something to do. The only problem living where we do so close to the sea is that you trade off a decent sized garden for that privilege so we shall move inland a bit and have the best of both world’s.
You are right – looking back at disasters after the event can produce good humour. I wrote not so long ago about how I discovered my first wife burnt the marital bed while I was at work. Crap day at the time; good laugh well after the event. Or the night – innocently I stress – when foul weather caused my secretary (also Shirl’s very best friend) and I to end up in the same bed and how the neighbours thought me a cad because it was the same night G was born. Sounds terrible yet nothing – I stress – untoward went on. Yes, odd events in life do convert into a tale. I thought by the way that you nailed it with your blogs last week. I enjoyed them a lot.
Why does he have to wait so long? Is that how all university works over there? I’m sure Jeremy will be interested and impressed by all George knows. I think the way they pick apart their own work is par for the course. I’ve known many professional musicians who do the same thing. After a concert, they harp on and on about one bad note that no one in the audience would have even noticed, but that’s all they heard. Jeremy spends hours “perfecting” something that to me hardly sounds any different, but he has a long list of reasons he made so many changes. I’d love to hear some of G’s music. Jeremy’s recorded two albums and several individual songs, but mostly these days he mixes for other people. I think that’s his main passion or at least the making money part is. LOL! That’s a shame you have to give up being so close to the sea, but if Shirley’s happy gardening, then you’ll be happy too, I bet. In bed with your wife’s best friend when your son was born? LOL! I believe you of course, but that is funny. My ex was in bed with a 15 year old while I was having his baby…but of course when their son was born 9 months later, everyone knew it wasn’t nothing that happened. LOL! That’s another one that at the time sucked, but I laugh at now. I think too many people don’t know how to laugh at themselves and/or also don’t get sarcasm. I think I pissed off a reader last week because I kept making snarky quips to his compliments and he didn’t know how to take me. I put the “winky face” after them, but he didn’t get that I was just kidding. Oh, well…. ya gotta walk on eggshells sometimes I guess. 🙂
It sounds to me that our respective offspring have much the same talents here – yet Jeremy has the thing G lacks thus far – namely commercial acumen. That is the key to survival. To mix such acumen with art then one has cracked the code of life! As to uni results I think it is different for each degree. With Music/Music Technology I can see that there are so many modules to mark/judge that it must take time. It is just a shame when students have to put their live’s on hold. The story re your first husband – with the passage of time of course – sounds a belter in terms of satirical scope . Did you ever write about it?
George will get there, I have no doubt. He sounds very talented indeed and for him to have gotten as far as he has already in his love of music, he is headed in the right direction. If mixing is going to be his heart’s desire or at least his bread and butter money in between his own projects, once he develops a client base, they’ll keep coming back and their word of mouth will take care of the rest. I am constantly amazed that even with the current bad economy, there are always people willing to pay a lot of money to have their music recorded and mixed well. Though you and Shirley may need to do as I have and help G invest in some covered mineral wool to soundproof his recording area. Not only does it improve the sound, but it prevents you from having to hear the countless hours of the less-than-talented kids that come over and pay for his services to make them sound good. Yes, as to my ex, he is indeed a joke in more ways than just that. No, I haven’t written anything about him other than the first half of my book The Prison. He’s not worth the ink much less the thought, but I bet there is some good satire there. LOL! Eight DAYS after we were married, I got a call from my neighbor’s boyfriend…I left work and came home early to find him in bed with my other neighbor (the guy’s girlfriend). I punched her in the eye and she fled, and then he had the nerve to tell me I ruined everything for him and that now she’d probably never come back! LOL! Yes, really! Now THAT is funny! That was the beginning of the end for us, and we split. About a year later, I gave him one more chance, but caught him in bed with someone else and left for good…That night I went out with my at the time best friend, and we were together for the first and only time…on the pill and with protection…and I got pregnant with Jeremy! LOL! Yes, really! So it seems I had me revenge and got a wonderful kid out of that, and yes, that is really funny as well, isn’t it? 🙂
Immaculate conception – you couldn’t put a good word in for me with Jeremy please. You see I had this knackered knee for years and a swift laying of healing hands might just do the trick! Seriously though you should write that story up. As to your book is it available on Amazon UK?
Not yet… I’m still in editing mode for that as well as three others. They’re pretty much ready except for a few minor things, but I want them to be perfect before I attempt to submit them. As for that story, that’s in my book The Worm Has Turned. That’s another one of my “truth is stranger than fiction” that no one would likely believe. LOL! If you haven’t read about them yet, the pitch for each is on its own page on my blog if you’re interested. As for Jeremy and your knee, I’ll see what he can do. 😉
Ain’t that the truth: you’re damned if you do, and you’re damned if you don’t! 🙂
As ever you pick the salient point so very well. Thank you.
XX
Is the frog’s name Baldrick by any chance? It’s the sort of cunning plan he could have come up with! Delicious piece of work!
Cheers – do you know I discovered something amazing today. I have been using my sons old laptop for LOMM stuff yet whilst a serviceable thing the battery runs down at a rate of knots. It is therefore the case I have to keep charging it up. I had no idea that it could be used whilst charging until a family member swore at me as a precursor to a derogatory word!
Well THAT was unfortunate for the trio but an excellent ending!!
Cheers young lady.