It is never wise to turn your back on a poison toad (genus bufo) or to lick his back for that matter. Toads are notoriously vengeful and easily slighted. They are particularly sensitive to comments about their personal appearance, warts specifically, as well as their grooming habits. Any criticism of their intellect, strategic political acumen, or past business success will be met with fire and fury the world has never seen.
Bufo bannonensus was at one time the white house top toad and the most important amphibian in the world. He squatted on the shoulder of the president and acted as his most trusted advisor. Because the current occupant of the oval office is a pretty empty vessel, bufo banno was able to whisper noxious notions into his ear and help tailor american policies to his nationalistic and xenophobic world-view.
Bufo banno was dead set against draining the swamp for obvious reasons, no amphibian with half a brain, is going to deliberately obliterate his own habitat. Hell no, he’s gonna fill that sucker up with like-minded creatures with whom he can easily machinate and maneuver the levers of power. Bufo banno became the apex amphibian for a reason, brother.
A large part of bufo banno’s ideology that the hominid president seemed to find attractive is territoriality and the exclusion of what are considered to be lesser species. Frogs, newts, and salamanders need not apply. The big bufo believes that in the ideal ecosystem there would be an actual wall around his personal space whose perimeters he considers to currently be way too porous. He does not subscribe to what he regards as the misguided notion that a diverse population is beneficial to the overall health and well being of any environment. He views those who support that theory as nothing more than a bunch of loser reptilians bitching about their lot.
Bufo banno also thinks that it’s high time our swamp quit subsidizing other less fecund wetlands. Not our problem. His message is “get your act together, show some initiative you pathetic parasites …we’ve done everything we can to underfund regulatory agencies and peacekeeping organizations, support autocratic regimes, extract ourselves from onerous goody two shoes alliances, not to mention abandoning our allies, so as we toads like to say, hop to it. “
In an amazing twist of fate big bufo got himself thrown out of the swamp, he apparently was too fetid for even that morass. Yet despite his absence the muck continues to ooze along just fine. Turns out that poison toads are a dime a dozen in washington. But two things that make big bufo both unique and particularly dangerous is that he knows who did what to whom and where they dumped all the carcasses. And last, but by no means least, he can sing like a veritable canary when threatened.
MJE strongly advises her readers and their loved ones to steer clear of poison toads and, no matter how tempting, and not to lick them. Ever.
my jaundiced eye 