Once upon a time, on a hot summer’s day, a princess rowed leisurely across the little pond in her royal grounds.
A large, green frog was sitting on a lily-pad in the middle of a sparkling pond watching her with great interest. As she glided past the lily-pad, the frog raised his head and called to her. “Kiss me,” called the frog, “upon my forehead, and I will turn into a handsome prince.”
“I think not,” replied the princess, noticing that it was quite wet beneath her fine slippers and wrinkling her nose with distain, “I rule my own kingdom thank you very much; I lead my own armies into battle and I make my own laws. I am, as they say, my own person. I need no prince, handsome or otherwise”. She dipped her oars and stared at the creature. With a whimsical smile she asked, “What else do you have to offer?”
“Then kiss me,” said the frog, “upon my forehead, and I will grant you great fortunes.”
“Oh! Sod that!” sneered the princess. “I maintain a strictly balanced budget with good economic growth and sensible interest rates”. She looked down at the water, now slopping around her feet. “Besides, your great riches would no doubt devalue my currency, send inflation soaring and cripple my Kingdom’s very reasonable current exchange rates. Is that the best you have to offer?”
“Alright, if you kiss me,” said the frog, getting a little miffed, “upon my forehead, I will grant you dazzling beauty.”
“How very flattering,” scoffed the princess, “I may be plain, but beauty does not last, whereas personality does!” She tossed her hair and giggled. “It’s personality that counts.”
The frog didn’t like being made fun of; or rejected when offering such wonderful gifts, especially when such things were being offered without any request for payment or return. “What the hell do you want then?” demanded the frog.
The princess paused and thought hard for the first time. After several moments she leaned closer to the pad and whispered, “I want to be happy.” She then lowered her head and kissed the frog upon his forehead.
The frog then saw the sadness in her eyes for the first time. “Well now”, he began, “You have refused love, riches and beauty; yet you seek happiness by kissing a frog!” He tilted his green head to one side. “Anybody might think this was some kind of fairy tale. May I ask; can you swim?”
“Eh! No; actually” she replied, looking down.
The frog went on, “If this was, in fact, a fairy story, traditionally those things being offered may well have been granted without delay. However, in the case of happiness, this is not an instant thing…” He seemed to tilt his great head again, as if pondering. “No. Happiness, and the getting of it, takes time; and by the look of the hole on the side of your boat and considering how much lower it is in the water, together with the distance from the closest bank, I would venture to say that time is one thing you are about to run out of!”
With that he hopped across the pad and dived into the deep, clear water. An environment in which he was, unlike the snooty princess, completely comfortable, and in the satisfying knowledge that anybody reading an account of these events would learn that it is not wise to be rude when talking to frogs.