WILLOW WIND HOLLOW — The animal population of a wooded glen was less than surprised when their mayoral election results yielded a landslide win for a jovial bullfrog in formal wear, sources confirmed while bristling at the triggering term “landslide.”
“Ah, twas a jolly good showing all around! My thanks to the voters of this fine glen — from the birds in the trees, to the bugs and the bees! Pip pip!” chimed Mayor Bullfrog, with a distinguished puff of his signature dewlap. “I daresay my promise of a ‘stolen vegetables from Farmer MacCready’s garden for all’ initiative was risky, but I didn’t kiss all those tadpoles at my rallies to be called a liar. ‘Slimy,’ sure, but that’s a descriptor I wear with pride, what what! Now to beef up my security team in case there are any more assassination attempts by out-of-town hawks!”
Mayor Bullfrog’s long-suffering opponent, Mr. Weasel, was less than sporting about his now annual defeat.
“Drat it all. Drat it to heck and back again, I say. Every year I hope we’ve progressed as a society enough to overcome our clear and rampant anti-predator bias, and every year I’m squashed back to reality, crushed and labelled a ‘loser.’ I’ll bet if I were born a chipmunk or even a sentient oak tree one might go to for cryptic advice, I’d be getting fitted for a ‘MAYOR’ sash right now!” opined Weasel, from his modest one-bedroom burrow. “And, of course, the scandal a few years back didn’t help. How was I to know those rotten eggs were someone’s kids and not part of the continental breakfast I assumed the hotel offered?”
Local man Reggie Potter, great-grandson of children’s author Beatrix Potter, had much to say on the election outcome.
“Man, I wish my great-grandmother was alive to see this. Or that anyone believed that this was happening in my backyard without calling for a psychiatric evaluation,” said Potter, frantically. “This election happens every year in my very backyard, and let me tell you, the minute people find out you’re the relative of Beatrix Potter and you’re trying to tell them there are well-dressed critters campaigning hutch-to-hutch, your credibility goes right down the drain. At least she was able to make some money off these little suckers. God, I wish I could draw.”
At press time, a recount was ordered after accusations of Mayor Bullfrog paying off the duck community for votes in exchange for a sack of wet bread.