Wannaskan Almanac for Tuesday, June 16, 2026 I'm Feelin' A Tad Old

Why I'm Canceling My Metamorphosis Subscription (Translated from Tadpolese)

By Toby the Tadpole | June 16, 2026

Hello, fellow pond-dwellers. It’s your favorite sleek, aerodynamic water-bullet, Toby. Or at least, I used to be sleek. I woke up this morning, stretched my perfectly streamlined body, and felt a weird, ungodly pop in my lower half. I looked back, and bam—stubby little hind legs.

I am officially furious. I’d like to speak to the manager of biology, please, because I am opting out.

Honestly, who designed this whole "growing up" process? For weeks, I’ve been the fastest swimmer in the shallows. My skin was smooth, youthful, and perfectly plump. Now? I’m getting a little bumpy around the edges. And my sleek, glorious tail—my defining feature, my absolute pride and joy—is shrinking. I hear from the reeds that I’m going to lose it entirely. What’s next? Am I going to start losing my eyesight and asking younger fish to read the algae labels for me?

Let's talk about these new appendages. They are incredibly high-maintenance. Just today, the barometric pressure dropped before a thunderstorm, and my newly sprouted "knees" started throbbing. I don't even know what a knee is, but I already hate it.

I look at the adult frogs on the bank, and frankly, the future looks bleak. Yesterday, I watched Old Man Croaker try to hop onto a lily pad. He misjudged the distance, belly-flopped into the duckweed, and spent the next hour rubbing his lower back and complaining to anyone who would listen about his sciatica. I don't want sciatica! I want to wiggle and glide seamlessly through the cool water. I don't want to worry about pulling a hamstring every time I see a tasty fly.

Furthermore, what is with this upcoming "lungs" business? Breathing water through gills is effortless. You just exist, and you breathe. Now you're telling me I’m going to have to haul my increasingly heavy, warty body onto dry land and actively gasp for air? It sounds exhausting. I feel like I'm being forced into a respiratory retirement home.

But... I have to admit something.

Yesterday evening, while I was stubbornly doing laps in the deep end, I swam up near the surface to pout. I looked up at the older frogs sitting on the muddy bank. Yes, they look a bit like grumpy, deflated green balloons. Yes, they make weird, involuntary groaning noises when they stand up.

But as they sat there, breathing their heavy air with their bumpy skin, they were looking at something I couldn't fully see from beneath the water's surface: a blazing, golden sunset reflecting off the cattails. And then, together, they started to sing. It wasn't a perfect sound. It was raspy, loud, and a little broken in places. But it was magnificent.

Maybe there's a point to the bumps, the lost tail, and the creaky joints. You can't stay a perfectly smooth, fast little swimmer forever. The water eventually gets cold, the seasons change, and the algae runs out.

Getting older means getting a little frailer, sure. The hops will inevitably get shorter. The skin will dry out. There will be days when simply climbing onto a rock feels like a monumental chore. And eventually, the croak will fade out entirely, and we’ll sink back into the mud to nourish the earth for the next batch of wriggling, smooth-skinned dreamers.

But maybe that's the profound beauty of it all. You trade your tail for legs so you can climb out of the muck. You endure the aches so you can feel the warmth of the sun on your back. You accept the frailty of the end because it means you had the chance to live a complete, ridiculous, fully-formed life.

It’s going to hurt a bit, and I'm definitely going to complain about my knees. But man, the view from up there must be beautiful.