The Frog Prince
Bani Asbucan

I can only imagine what it must be like to be a woman.  My ignorance on the matter will always be more than I will ever care to admit.  This has been one of my favorite lectures as a literature teacher, my tribute to all women for all the angst, most of which they repress, and the men they have to put up with everyday of their lives.

According to the fairy tale of the same title, a prince was turned into a frog by a curse that may only be broken by the kiss of a princess.  The frog prince did get a princess to kiss him, and he was magically restored to his handsome, princely self.  In the end, the princess fell in love with him just as he had fallen in love with her, so they married and lived happily ever after.  In my lectures I always loved to add: and the children came, and the work piled up, and they argued on who's washing the dishes...blah, blah.
 

Surely the lives of women (or girls, though I don't want to bother with the distinction now) who found their prince, or thought they did, is no fairy tale where they lived "happily ever after."  However, the princess personifies women in general except that she is way, way luckier.  I mean all she had to endure to land a prince was kiss one frog, and a solitary kiss it was, too.  A lot of other women would have to kiss more than one frog in their quest to find their prince.  And you can be sure it would take more than just a kiss.

The truth is that no real woman has it as good as the princess and that it is the woman and not the frog who bears the curse.  That is why they call her story a fairy tale.  If I'm wrong though, do tell me about it.

For some women, it takes a lot of patience and years of kissing before their frog finally turns to a prince.

Those are the lucky ones.

Other women would be deceived into believing they have finally kissed their frog into a prince, only to wake up the next morning and find him as froggy as ever.  The moments of delusion would repeat itself every now and then.  For some of these women, they would eventually be rewarded with a handsome prince by their side.  The rest would either just take those moments for what they're worth or simply resign themselves to kissing their frog and pretending he was this handsome prince.  Too bad for those who could not get themselves to pretend.

Still, those women are luckier.  Their less fortunate sisters will try and try until the realization finally hits them that their frog will never turn into a prince.  Worse, by the time they realize this, they will have been too spent physically, mentally and emotionally that trying to correct their error would be farthest from their minds.

They are not the most miserable though, nor are the next group of women I'm going to write about.  I'm referring to those women who, after many years of blood, sweat and tears (and some necessary nagging?) finally makes a prince out of her frog only to lose him to another woman.  Ouch!  Or, after kissing her frog 777 times seven times, a great cloud of smoke bursts followed by a blinding light then, when everything clears up, what should pop into her view but a pig, or a monkey, or...  You know what I mean.

Finally we come to those women who have it worse, those who would not even get to catch a frog.  They will have no choice but to kiss the toads.