WARNING! This story of last night’s DREAM is NOT for the squeamish or easily offended by old southern food-stuffs or food preparation. My intent is only that you ‘hurl’ laughter, and nothing else!
The soft rock classic ‘DREAM WEAVER’ by Gary Wright was released on the Warner Bros. label in mid 1975. I suppose you can say that’s MY SONG! For as long as I can remember, I’ve weaved dreams in my sleep each and every night. As I age, with more ‘memory-material’ to draw from, those dreams get more and more weird. Last night’s doozie is a case in point.
Last night I dreamed that Carol and I were starting up a home ‘food service’ business. We’d cook up delights in our kitchen, and deliver them to homes in our area. The super-weird part is that our specialty was deep fried FROG LEGS!
I can’t remember when the last time I’ve had frog legs… and yes, I have. You may have heard that ‘they taste like chicken,’ and they sorta-kinda do… but with much less meat on the bone.
When I was a child (in the 40s) an older (and very unique) cousin who lived next door frequently went frog-gigging. Once he accidentally left his knife at home, and because the gigers always brought home only the legs… he BIT them off! (Remember, I warned you!)
Back to last night’s froggy-dream: Carol and I wanted to BEST fried frog legs possible. They were to be our signature dish. Now I have never gigged a frog in my life, and don’t care to start. So we had to purchase the legs from an outside source. But… because we wanted them to be the freshest of the fresh… we shied away from commercial pre-packed, frozen legs, which I’m sure are available somewhere, somehow, someway. So, we found a soggy feet Mississippi frog-gigger who could supply us with fresh from the water frogs!
Now the ‘gig’ that is used (or at least was when I was a child) is a 3-pointed ‘trident’ spear similar to what the gods Poseidon (Greek) or Neptune (Roman) carried. These modern day tridents are of course much smaller in scale… so they usually don’t actually kill the frog… only injure them. That said, our supplier was to delivered to us, in large plastic 5 or 10 gallon buckets, fresh, WHOLE FROGS.
The plan was to remove the legs immediately before cooking.
I’ll pause here to tell you that my dreams are not only extremely vivid, but also detailed to the extreme!
Now we had ‘compassion’ for these aquatic hoppers who were unwillingly donating their lives and legs (rear legs only) for our personal dining pleasure. We had a method by which we quickly ‘dispatched’ the now leg-less frogs. This sad ‘cast off’ went into another bucket to be disposed of. It’s about this time that I now wished that our dogs had felt the need of going outside to potty… and awakening me to taken them out… and end this froggy nightmare.
But no… I slept on… and dreamed on. Now it was time to empty the ‘cast-off’ bucket. Garbage day was days away. Disposal had to be by another method. Ah… down the drain seemed a good idea! But NOT down the kitchen drain… where coffee cups, glasses, and cereal bowls often dwell! Aha! The toilet. So I lugged then heavy container of you-know-what down the hallway to the bathroom. Lifting it to the rim of the potty… my hand somehow slipped… and the pail tipped backwards and onto the floor… emptying gallons and gallons of smelly semi-liquid frog on the bathroom floor… out the door… and into the hallway! THEN I AWOKE! Oh why not earlier?
Carol!!! Bring the mop!
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Pen In Hand 