If a froggery is gathering of frogs, a bloggery must be a gathering of blogs. Or, for my purposes, a gathering of bloggers, who sit around the WordPress pond croaking. Not the kind of croaking that leads to funerals, although some days, because of the posting, the reading, the commenting, the researching, and  the revising, followed by more of the same, the exhausted blogger may feel close to death.

 

Headline: Death by Blog. Today in Podunk, Wisconsin, a husband discovered his wife’s dead body in their home office, sitting at her desk and staring at her computer with her fingers still on the keyboard. Mrs. Mortimer had been there for three days before her husband realized she was dead. “We often went days without speaking,” he said, “because she spent all day writing, reading, and commenting on blogs.” It’s the fourth case of death by blog this week. Experts attribute the deaths to blogged arteries, leading to permanent brain freeze.

Okay, back to frogs and blogs. After extensive research, which may translate to over a hundred minutes, I have discovered some amazing similarities between frogs and bloggers, which I think you will find ribbiting. I know I did.

But first, you must understand that the crucial difference between frogs and toads is all in your head. Popular culture put the idea there, along with thousands and thousands of images of J*st*n B**b*r, he who must be asterisked. In spite of their differences, frogs and toads belong to the same order, Anura; they just have different last names. Some have more warts than others, but so do some of your family members.

At last we are on the same taxonomic page, so here are the similarities:

 

• A frog’s skin hangs loosely on its body. Compare that with the slack-jawed look of bloggers who sit in front of a computer screen for hours and days. Then, if you dare, stand in front of a mirror with just your froggy skin on. Anything looking loose? I thought so.

 

• Frogs are nocturnal creatures. Think how many people blog at night. When you wake up, are there new blogs to read and new comments to answer? Again, I thought so.

 

• Frogs wear camouflage to help them sleep during the day. Many bloggers have so-called jobs during the day, but most of them just look awake. They are half asleep because they stayed up too late blogging. Also, they have special eyelids that make them look like they are engaging in a conversation with you while they are mentally composing blogs or comments for other blogs.

 

• Some frogs produce psychoactive skin secretions that make you hallucinate. You know which blogs I’m talking about.

 

• Frogs return by the thousands to breed at the body of water they call home. Every day close to 500,000 bloggers gather at the WordPress pond, post close to 850,000 new posts and almost one million comments. Just today, as of 6:30 a.m., that adds up to 182, 325, 317 words. That’s a lot of spawn.

 

• A frog is an amphibian, which means “two lives.” Before you become a blogger you were a person with a life, once you become a blogger you lost that life and now live in the blog pond. And you look different, with looser skin.

 

• Frogs appear in stories as harmless, unsightly, and clumsy creatures. However, they often hide some talent or their frogginess is merely a disguise. In the blog pond, reading a blog is like kissing a frog and being magically transformed. Sometimes. The other times, it’s like kissing a frog. With warts.

Happy Leap Day! I know it’s tomorrow, but I have been pondering this for a while and wanted to get a jump on all the celebrations and well-wishing. And, although I have toad you this before, thanks for reading.

 

All photos courtesy of http://www.theinformationarchives.com/frogs/