I think I might be a wide-mouthed frog

Children love jokes and the longer they take to get to the punchline, the more they seem to enjoy them. A favourite from my childhood was the one about the wide-mouthed frog. It had all the elements needed to make it a perfect joke: funny facial expressions, an endless lead-in, a deeply flawed main character and a terrible punchline that really wasn’t worth the wait. What more can you ask?

In this joke (don’t worry, I’ll give you a much-abbreviated version), the teller pretends to be a wide-mouthed frog who goes up to various creatures and in a loud, hectoring voice says “Hello, I’m a wide-mouthed frog, what do you like to eat?” The frog might ask a lion, who says it likes to eat antelopes, an owl who likes to eat mice – you get the idea. This nosy, intrusive frog can work its way through the entire animal kingdom if the teller and listener are in the mood. All of this is told while making your mouth as wide as possible. Then, inevitably, something like an alligator replies “wide-mouthed frogs” and you then make your mouth into a tiny little bud and quietly say “Oh.” It’s a classic! A visual gag about a nosy, noisy creature that gets its comeuppance.

I am becoming nosier and nosier with age (and possibly noisier) and am afraid that one of these days I’ll pay the price, just like the wide-mouthed frog. I have still not got over the novelty of living near a canal and I love all the activity, especially now that summer is here. There is a swing bridge nearby, which is often open to allow canal boats to pass through. I walked by the other day to find the bridge open and a woman operating the controls. I’d often wondered how this bridge worked, so I went to ask her and we had quite a chat about bridges, canals, locks, narrow boats and life in general. I don’t think she minded too much because she did walk up to the next lock with me, but still. Is it polite to accost random boaters to satisfy my own curiosity?

It has occurred to me that I might be channelling my mother, who was one of the world’s most gregarious people. She happily talked to anyone and everyone, and was fascinated by them all. In fact, she chose an upstairs apartment because it had a balcony and she’d be able to watch everything that was going on below. I laughed at how brazen she was and reminded her of the story she’d told me about her mother.  Apparently, my nanna and her sister used to take chairs upstairs to the front bedroom so they could sit at the window and watch all the neighbourhood comings and goings. Such unashamed nosiness, but it was before people had televisions – what else did they have to do? I find it all quite endearing.

I obviously come from a family of wide-mouthed frogs. My fate was sealed long ago.