Why Self-Importance & Frogs Don’t Mix
A fictional political parable
One time a narcissist got bored and decided to become a green frog instead.
“Just for a week,” he told his nervous girlfriend, “then I’ll come back home and help you with finding even more success as an Avian Influencer!”
And what, you may be asking, do Avian Influencers do?” Well, they talk to birds, of course, giving them advice on the best migration routes, the health of trees for nesting, and how to poop on duck hunters’ bald heads. Stuff like that.
“But, Lawrence,” she reminded her nutty boyfriend, “what if you’re unable to return, you know, to your uber handsome self?”
“It concerned me, too, but I have it on the best faith from 12 other narcissists I’m friends with (not really friends, because we’re all narcissists, you know) that there’s this plastic surgeon in Matamoros who can do wonders. All it takes is $10,000, and he can make you into any animal you want!”
“And make you back, too?”
“Sure! It’s included in the package!”
“So, why a frog, Larry?”
“Leandra! Never call me Larry! Lawrence…”
“I know, I know, like in Arabia.”
“With all the music that befits my narcissistic importance!”
So off he went to Mexico in search of froggish delight, and, of course, the shiningest green sheen thing imaginable, because … he was a narcissist! Lawrence, who really had never been to Arabia and thought that Alec Guinness was just an Obi-Wan wanna-be, had gotten really mixed up by watching old Sesame Street shows while high on mushrooms. He thought that Kermit was actually Jesus Christ returned from the dead, and that being green would be his ticket to immortality.
Well, at least for a week, he figured. And, if it wasn’t all that he imagined, he’d go back to just looking stylish (in the human sense) and helping Leandra fleece the birds again.
But - stories have to have these surprises, you know - ‘ol Larry unknowingly had chosen the wrong plastic surgeon. The dude was (and is, I understand) El Chapo’s personal identity scrubber, and could care less about the fantasies of weird American furries like Lawrence, the green narcissist from Miami.
Yep, you guessed it. He turned Larry into a shiny green frog, alright, but with a face that looked absolutely like Adolf Hitler! Even Tucker Carlson was impressed! He invited him to be on his show, and Larry accepted.
Being a narcissist, even though now he was actually a green Nazi frog, he was simply salivating over the opportunity for MAGA fame. When the cameras started rolling, he jumped on Tucky’s shoulder, whipped out his tongue, and hauled in a fly who had been heading straight for Mike Pence’s short gray hairdo!
“Pence?” you’re saying, “How did he get here?”
In a limousine, you idiot! He doesn’t take ubers. And, yes, he’s the secret secret to Tucky’s success. He does all the scriptwriting. And how you might ask? How can such a wooden nincompoop, with a wife he calls Mother, ever write the wacky brain denying shit that Carlson is famous for?
With Alien assistance, of course! Why does he keep his gray hair so short that flies love it? Because it has to be that short so his Laser Scopic Dominatrix headset (the one the Aliens gave him when he was Veep) will work. You see, it has to be close enough for the little thing in his head that Darwin refused to call a brain, to communicate with.
With the Aliens from Planet Dominatrix, of course!
Of course! How else do you think I’m going to get this story to work?
The LSD (headset) has a direct communication line with a standup improv group on the Dominatrix homeworld that rebroadcasts Tucky’s shows to half the fucking galaxy, and, yes, they really are big hits.
“Big hits with big tits!” Pence likes to say. But tonight was different. What to do with a green frog with a face like Hitler’s, who was now sitting on Tucker’s shoulder eating a fly? “Shit, Alien Dudes, what should I have Tucker say?”
“Tell him to just pick a booger from the frog’s nose and eat it.”
Tucker did so.
“That’s yummy!” he thought to himself, but instead went off script, and started crying. “That’s exactly the taste I remember from first grade when I ate boogers in class so the teacher wouldn’t call on me to answer questions!”
The Aliens, of course, were broadcasting this to half the galaxy, and their ratings went through the starship roof. Pence, being the piece of wood he really is, didn’t get the joke at all. All he could think of was Mother, who he always imagined was really Lady Gaga, whenever they held hands because, well, that’s as far as he figured he wanted to go in Furryville.
Larry, being the stupidest narcissist since Trump himself, was just riding high. The mushrooms had paid off! And here he was on Tucker’s show before a national audience of election deniers (and secret furries) at last!
In a deep froglike voice (when frogs speak English, they’re different) he incoherently intoned while still savoring that fly’s little hairs that brushed against his throat as it slid down down down to his little burbly stomach, “Mr. Carlson, I’m so honored to be here, but no, I didn’t enter the Capitol on January 6th. I was with Mike Pence at a secure location to make sure the flies didn’t eat him.”
“I heard,” Tucker replied, “that Trump had asked you to be Secretary of State because Pompeo had let him down and was going back to Kansas to sell used cars. Is that really true?”
Larry thought if he should further lie and say it was, but by this time the mushrooms were wearing off, and he belatedly realized he had gone to Mexico and paid $10,000 to become a frog! “What kind of narcissist have I become??!!”
Just then Leandra burst into the studio to save him. Pence took off his LSD Alien Helmet and tried to stop her. But, son, you don’t mess with a real Avian Influencer. She had put the word out on Tik Tok for all the pigeons to come to that Fox studio and … well, do what pigeons do.
And that’s how pigeon poop did what all the Democrats in Foggy Bottom couldn’t: Expose Fox and MAGA for what they really are. And I can’t say what that really is in polite company.
*************************************
Larry was able to return to human form. El Chapo got such a kick out of the whole thing while sitting in prison that he told the plastic surgeon to not leave the poor guy as an eternal green frog, but, as he didn’t mention the face, well, that is unfortunate. You might be a human, but if you look like Adolf, and your girlfriend still needs to influence birds to make a living, well, MAGA won’t save you now.
Poor Larry. I hear he’s used his last savings to buy puppies from George Santos and move to Texas where he hopes to sell them to Ted Cruz, who’s promised to smuggle them in his luggage when he makes his next trip to Cancun.
Why does Ted want to smuggle puppies to Mexico? “I’m not leaving them there, you idiot! My wife won’t go with me, and I just want some company.”
God help us all.
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© “John” Lesly Levin 2023
PS — Alec Guinness plays Prince Faisal in Lawrence of Arabia. But my favorite Alec Guinness role is a 1951 very English comedy, The Man in the White Suit.
