Frog Team

My last job was at Microsoft. My job there was to kill a big bullfrog with a shovel. The bullfrog lived in a marshy area near the parking lot and it croaked really loud and distracted some of the programmers so it was our job to kill it with a shovel. There were five of us, we were called the Frog Team. On our sixth day on patrol we saw the frog hopping around next to a trash bin and chased it into the road and it got run over by a big truck.

They were going to lay off the whole Frog Team after that, but because we’d done such a good job they said they had another project for us. There was a big slow turtle that lived near some picnic tables that was always opening its mouth at people, so they asked us to crack its shell open. We saw the turtle on the second day and then spent an hour or so whacking on its shell with our shovels until it finally broke.

After that the whole Frog Team was invited to the Microsoft Company Christmas Party. We were a little shy, but a few people came up to us and told us we’d done a great job and that loosened us up.

Bill Gates was there. He was in the middle of the dance floor rubbing himself through the front of his pants. He came over to me and said, “you’re on that Frog Team.” I said yes, sir, I was. He said, “let’s get out of here, I’ve got some weed in my car.” I asked if the rest of the Frog Team could come, and he said “no, I don’t want to get high with your little goofball friends.” I told him I wanted to go home but he grabbed me by the shoulder so hard it hurt and told me, “come on, we’ll just get high for a little while. Don’t be a wet pussy,” and then he stuck out his tongue and waggled it at me between his two fingers, which I understood to be an obscene gesture.

He walked me out to the parking lot and I saw my opportunity and hit him across the back with my shovel. Microsoft’s human resources director was at her car and saw me do it and she rushed over and grabbed the shovel out of my hands. “A MAN IS NOT A FROG!” she yelled and she knelt down to check on Bill Gates. He’d bitten down pretty hard on his tongue and was bleeding from the mouth. I left the party right then, knowing I’d done wrong.

You can believe I felt just awful for hitting Bill Gates with the shovel! More than anything I felt I’d let down the Frog Team with my shoddy behavior. I didn’t leave the house for a week I was so depressed. And then one day there was a knock at the door — and it was the whole Frog Team to give me their support! And who else was there but Bill Gates, weeping and opening his arms to me for a hug of forgiveness?

I work at NASA now, ripping up cats with a big riding lawnmower whenever they wander into the field near the launch pad, but I had something special over there at Microsoft, and I don’t know if I’ll ever have it again. The cats scream.

Frog Team originally appeared in John Harris’s PBQ