Stranger than Fiction

One afternoon, when my father was a boy, he was exploring a dried-up riverbed. It was summer, and there were toads everywhere. It was mostly all those wee toads, the ones you can scoop up by the handful, and they're no bigger than your thumbnail. But there were larger toads hanging around, sunning themselves on stones, or making puffed-throat toad noises. You could hardly go a step without crushing a toad underfoot. My father wandered along the riverbed, keeping to the edges so his shoes wouldn't get muddy. He went farther and farther and farther, and soon the sun began to fade from the sky. Every dockleaf housed a cave of shadows. And in one such cave, crouching like a troll, he found a toad the size of a dinner plate. So obscene was this toad, so warty and so vile, that my father ran away from it, and didn't stop till he was miles away. It wasn't that he thought it'd bite him, or wart up his skin, or anything like that. No--he was afraid it'd hop, and its fat, foldy body would ripple, and it would look so completely disgusting that he'd never scrub his brain clean of the image. So he dropped all the toads he already had and ran.

I never believed that damn story. What a crock. Here's another one:

When I was four years old, I also discovered a toad. Mine wasn't a dinner-plate toad, though. It was only as big as my fist, and it had a five-pointed star on its back. Brown toad; white star. Quite remarkable. Being the horrid little monster I was, I decided to plant that toad in the ground and see what would grow. So I dug a hole about a foot deep, stuck in the toad, and covered it up. Poor toad. A few days later, I remembered about the starbacked toad, and went to the garden to see if anything had grown. To my great surprise, a rosebush had, indeed, sprung up virtually overnight, and was already in full bloom. I dug up the rosebush to look for the toad, but it was nowhere to be found, alas. I, unfortunately, was all too easy to find, in my bright red hoodie coat, and got in trouble for ruining the garden.

I'm not sure I believe that one either, and I remember it. But--but how did the rosebush get there? And what happened to the toad? Why was there a star on its back? Maybe my mother planted the rose, the toad burrowed its way out, and someone had dyed its back. Maybe I dreamed it all. Maybe I even made the whole thing up, and told it so many times I started believing in it, right down to the smell of wet earth and the sting of the slap I got for digging up the roses.

Or this one--what about this one:

Superstar USA is a television show, much like American Idol. Except, instead of looking for the best singers in America, they're looking for the worst ones. These folks are fuckinorrible. Worse than I am, in fact, and that's saying a lot. Supposedly, they don't know they're bad. Right. Sure. And my name's John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt. I mean, not only are these people dreadful singers, but they're dreadful dancers, to boot. And their costumes--dear God, their costumes! The eighties called! Jeeeezus! Does anyone seriously believe they've never looked in a mirror or sung into a tape recorder? Either they've been paid outright to be awful, or they know all too well they're being made fun of, but are determined to milk it anyway, just to get their fifteen minutes in the spotlight.

When you're mediocre, or slightly above average, it's easy to believe you're great, especially if you're constantly showered with praise by your nearest and dearest. But when you're out and out awful...I'm not so sure. No. I'm not buying it. Superstar USA is a hoax on someone, all right, but I'm not convinced it's the performers.

It's a weird, weird world, all right.