WE SHOULDA NAMED THEM JOHNNY AND JUNE

...or at least that was Mommy's comment after the coroner confirmed that Burt, our other African Dwarf Frog, was indeed dead as a doornail.

And although we were assured by the 12-year-old sales rep that our little amphibian friends were both male so there'd be no threat of waking up one morning to a tank full of tiny tadpoles, we do believe that like the great Johnny Cash, Burt, unable to bear the deafening silence of living without his lifetime companion blowing bubbles in his face, no longer able to tolerate the vast void left by Errol in the spacious 6x6 tank that he'd hogged -- always relegating little Burt to the corner under the rock (and nobody puts baby in the corner), and utterly unable to overcome the grief of of not waking up to Errol's flippers slamming against the side of the glass every two seconds, has, inevitably, followed his June into the great hereafter.

And we wish him all the best.

Oh, man, now that I think about it, we could've had a full-blown Mardi Gras funeral for him today, it being Fat Tuesday and all -- beads and jazz and King Cake and burled crawfish and po' boys and ersters and jambalaya and seafood gumbo and daiquiris...mmm...frog legs.

I know, I know, sooo not right.

...