Is It Really Not Easy Being Green?

What THE hell! That stupid frog. "It's not easy being green." Really? Are you fucking kidding me? Everything around us is green. It's the freaking color of life, and he thinks it's not easy? Omigod. The audacity of that moron.

To say I'm incensed would be an understatement. Try being a giant organism that really has no genus or species, is of indeterminate color, and clears a room or a bus on the regular. I would give my left nut to be a sweet, little, green frog. Everyone knows a frog or a toad when they see one. Granted, I cannot for the life of me remember what the difference is between the frog and the toad.

Oh, and the fucking frog can sing. How is it even fair? The voice they gave me sounds like I'm six Prozacs away from offing myself. Eeyore sounds like a motivational speaker next to me. Who even comes up with this stuff?

And then. And then...when they introduced me on the show? I'm invisible to almost everyone on the show. The people who can see me see a giant, hairy four-legged creature with a penile-looking nose (granted, they gave me a nose like a porn star's penis, but still...). I'm not an ant eater or aardvark. No, I'm an invisible brown and grey, hairy penis-nosed quadruped. It's ridiculous. And the frog...he's on two shows.

And then he is relentlessly pursued by the pig. Does he not see how gorgeous she is? He is constantly pushing her away. I would take that little ham hock in a second.

So, I got to thinking. You know what would make that little shit grateful for being the popular and fortunately colored pile of slimy mush that he is? I would want him to spend a day walking around in my shoes. I would like for him to wake up covered in hair, mostly invisible, and with a schnozzola that would make his mama blush.

I started doing some reading, and what I needed to find was a wish-granting fairy or genie. They were more difficult to find than I thought, but then I was listening to this podcast about the dark web, and I thought, "Why not?"

What I found was beyond my wildest dreams. It was a company called Three Wishes. They would only grant one actual wish. They called it three wishes because one wish was granted in simply finding them, the second wish was granted by their not asking you to sign over your literal soul in exchange for services, and then I would get to choose the final wish. They reviewed my profile before determining what I would have to pay for the wish they would grant. I wished for the frog to spend one day looking like I looked, and they asked for a date with my sister. I said, "Sounds good." I had no idea if she would agree, but she had to feel the sting of the indignity of being a non-entity (most of the time). At any rate, I would give her extra money to do this for me. Any time I flashed a little green (!) her way, she was happy.

The next day, I went to work. The frog arrived 20 minutes late. He said he'd had trouble with his bike that morning. According to him, when he hopped onto the seat, he bent the entire frame of the bike, the tires popped, and the spokes acted as deadly projectiles when they shot out of the wheels. Of course, I could see and hear the frog, but half the people at work couldn't see him, and they treated the people who could see him like we were all on a shared acid trip. And then when the people who could see the frog were explaining to HR that the frog was there but invisible to most everyone, they were checked for a fever, and then to see if they may have sustained a concussion somewhere, and then we were sent home. This was turning out to be a pretty good day. We didn't have to use vacation time.

But, as luck would have it, the frog wanted to talk to me about what was going on. When I asked the genie for the wish, I did not realize The Law of Unintended Consequences might kick in. The frog was indeed grey-brown and hairy, but he was also the size of a Volkswagen Beetle, and to make things even more hilarious he had the dick-nose, but all of this was attached to a frog face and body. If we weren't invisible, I would have taken a selfie and stuck it on my fridge. With the increase in his size and the addition of all the hair (because there was also an undercoat), the frog probably weighed in the neighborhood of 1,500 pounds. He was a very big, hairy boy. If he hadn't been invisible, he would have been viewed as a threat of epic proportions. He had apparently not looked at himself in a mirror today. It would most certainly have given him a jolt.

"Snuf, what the heck is going on? Why is everyone, well, almost everyone acting like I'm invisible. I don't get it."

"Frog," I said. "Do you have a mirror in your bathroom? Did you brush your teeth this morning? Shave? Take a bath or shower or anything?"

"Funny you should ask that," he said. "The people from the power company sent out a notice around three weeks ago to say the power on our block would be out for one hour today. I showered and shaved last night. This morning, I brushed my teeth in the dark, and then left my house, but I had the mishap with my bike. Hey. Are you hot? I'm hot," he continued all in the same breath.

"Frog, I'm always hot. Look at all this hair," I wanted him to look at me, then look at himself. It wasn't clicking for him that he didn't look the same. "Since we don't have to work today, I want you to come with me to Coney Island. We'll step on the scale and get our weights and fortunes on a tiny strip of paper."

"Okay, sure. Sounds fun. Maybe we can ride the Wonder Wheel," he said, sounding hopeful.

"Maybe," I said, but I was thinking, 'Fat chance.' We would max out the weight limit. No one would let us on that ride. In fact, if they could see the car-sized hairy frog and fire hose of a nose, we'd probably be surrounded by guys in hazmat suits in minutes, then herded into paddywagons seconds later. I was just thinking how invisibility was starting to have its perks.

We found the scale, and I had lost around 65 pounds lately. I was walking more. It helped me with the boredom of being my own company since most people couldn't see me, much less talk to me. The frog got on the scale, and he nearly fainted. "This scale has to be wrong!" he exclaimed. "It's saying I weigh 1,311 pounds. I usually weigh around 15 pounds max."

"Frog. The scale isn't wrong. You've had a temporary transformation."

"What?" he screeched. "What do you mean transformation?"

"Come with me. There are some old fun house mirrors along the midway. You'll have to see it to believe it." When we reached the mirrors, I positioned the frog in front of one of the regular mirrors. He gasped and fainted. Luckily, he fell back against me, and I eased him to the ground. He woke up a minute or two later and looked at me.

"What's going on? I look like the frog version of you," he said.

"Yeah. And you're invisible to most people. Just like I am. And you're large and ungainly. The people who can see you are going to be very afraid of you because you look both strange and terrifying. You look like a beast that rose up from the fiery pits of hell, you know." I said.

"Why?" he asked, his voice reedy, whiny. It made me want to slap him.

"Your insipid song," I said. "It's not easy being green," I said in a mocking voice. "Come on, man. It is SO easy being green. Your biggest fear should be not being seen while humans are mowing their lawns, but no. You're a national treasure, and you're the color of money, and you're complaining about it, and you make people feel sorry for you and fall in love with you. My god, man. What do you want? The whole world? I wanted you to feel like I feel for a single day. That's all."

"How on earth did you accomplish it?" he asked in earnest.

"The internet. I bought a wish. My sister has to go out with a genie."

"Hunh," he croaked in response.

"I know, right?" I said. "You can get anything on the internet."