I've Stayed In Worse Places

I can tell you from unfortunate personal experience the sort of thing you can expect if you allow yourself to fall under the spell of a poison toad. It’s not good, that’s for damn sure.

You’d think, I suppose, that any reasonably intelligent person would know enough to steer clear of a poison toad that showed up on his doorstep at midnight, particularly when said toad was wearing an ill-fitting top hat, speaking perfect English, and toting what it claimed was a magic lantern.

I’ll admit, though, that I’d had a few belts and was feeling no pain. And the odd thing was that when I opened the door and saw this creature on my front porch I never for a minute doubted my eyes. And I knew for damn sure that a toad wearing a top hat was likely to have something to say. This fellow certainly didn’t disappoint on that count.

Oh, Lord, he had plenty to say, and I fell for it hook, line, and sinker. He was a real smooth operator, a first-rate song-and-dance man. He’d also clearly had his eye on me or done some background research, because he seemed to understand that I was lonesome and dealing with a good deal of personal darkness.

The toad offered to trade me his magic lantern for a head of lettuce and a saucer of Scotch. This seemed at the time like a reasonable bargain, but there was hitch: I had to kiss the toad before he would hand over the magic lantern.

A lonely and intoxicated man, you’ll surely understand, will do all manner of foolish things for a magic lantern, and so I gave the toad his saucer of Scotch and the lettuce –we had to compromise a bit; I buy my lettuce by the bag– and then I did as he requested and got down on my hands and knees and kissed him on the mouth.

At which point the magic lantern, which had been sitting there on my welcome mat, was immediately extinguished and I found myself transformed into a toad and perched on a log at the edge of a dark bog.

I hopped that night until I was exhausted, and when I finally arrived at the edge of my driveway I could see that what I assumed was the poison toad, looking like a much happier and healthier version of myself (he was shirtless, for one thing, and in better physical shape than I’d ever been), was hosting a raging party in my house.