I’ve often toyed with the idea of what it would be like if, through some sort of freakish accident, I were to acquire toad, or toad-like, powers.
I’m thinking, at the very least I would never have to pay for another muffin. Unless of course toads have some sort of highly developed sense of right and wrong and I inherited that as well. Or they don’t like muffins. This is why the government needs to support important research projects. There are still many important things we do not know.
I often picture myself walking by a muffin kiosk (who doesn’t), at a “food fair” in a mall, or maybe just some little muffin stand on the side of a road. I glance over casually, just, you know, looking around. As the muffin seller (I call her Muffy, or sometimes Muffalina) looks up at me I change my expression to one of surprise, looking over her shoulder at what is apparently something very interesting, perhaps even provocative, just behind her. Maybe at first she thinks I’m looking at her, and perhaps she smiles a little, but I’m careful not to smile back because hey, I’m not really looking at her, I’m looking at something really awesome *behind* her, right? Like I’m really fooled that she’s smiling at me because she’d like to get to know me better or something. Like to her I’m not just another potential muffin consumer, just another chump with a couple of dollars she’d love to take. Wake up and smell the Irish Cream flavoured coffee, pal.
Yeah sure, those muffins might be sweet and delicious. They may be bursting with fruit-filled cakey goodness. It might indeed be a fair exchange of goods for cash, perfectly acceptable within the parameters of the capitalist society in which we live. So that kind of deflates the whole righteous indignation thing but the point is: I wasn’t fooled for a second. Which in toad seconds is probably close to 10 minutes.
Anyway, as Muffy begins to realize that is actually some person or event situated behind her upon which I am focused, she naturally turns to look. Her attention thus diverted I just – “zap” – grab a muffin with my supertoad tongue and keep on walking, spitting out the paper wrapper, and laughing all the way to the bank. Or the dry cleaners, or where ever I’m headed that day.
As if life could be that good for me. Of course this is all just pure fantasy. No, gone are the days of the honest, phoney smiling, muffin seller, with her simple muffin cart, only to be replaced by the sterile reality of the Plexiglas display case. Some people call this “progress.” But I wonder if somewhere along the way we’ve lost sight of the important things in life, like giving a guy a chance to grab a free muffin for once.
So it goes pretty much downhill from here. Now I have to wait for an actual muffin transaction to take place. But it just gets horribly complicated with diverting the attention of two people right at the moment of muffin transfer, requiring expert timing, which in and of itself is okay because toads probably have expert timing, they’ve just never had the drive or ambition to put it to good use. It could still work, but the reward just doesn’t justify the risk.
Fact is, I know it’s not likely I will ever have toad powers anyway. I don’t work in research lab where I’m likely to be bitten by a radioactive toad, and if I did I probably wouldn’t get bitten anyway. I’ve always had a way with animals. Damn my gentle nature.