Frog Applause by Teresa Burritt for June 27, 2018

Make the tickle enough like the scurrying of certain insect species and I’m not only conscious of it, you’re liable to get slapped.

Karma will bite you in the bum for such rudeness.

In the Navy, the messenger would wake up the next shift. You shake their feet. The feet are always awake and you are too far away for them to hit you.

This sounds like a theological question.

Was He conscious of the tickling? If so, does the Lord resent this?

Tickle them with a baton and clear the park of bums.

All hypothetical persons are “he”.

Spirits can enter through the soles of the big man’s foot.

Carrying a bride across a threshold protects her feet.

Toes may curl inward, outward..

All occurring on the mysterious island of Dr. Scholl.

It’s a trick question (the English language lacks a third party gender neutral personal pronoun).

The plantar would end up in the fasciitis of the tickeler ….

Finally, something I can fully relate to. Of course, HE was conscious about it. Isn’t HE supposed to be aware of everything?

If the tickled one is unconscious, you get kicked. If the tickled one is conscious, you get punched. I just leave sleepers alone, unless it is an emergency, then I yell them awake or poke them with an object, if I have to.

Games with digital extremities. It’s all ones and zeros. Yes-no, up-down, in-out. 10101010101. A sleeping hand in warm water produces a 1. Tickling a sleeping foot produces a 0. Sleeping on a bed of digits and Triominos is, however, a game I am unfamiliar with. Whatever tickles your fancy.

If Sister were such a one as were the nuns of my schooldays, she would recognize that in the English language we have four genders—Masculine, Feminine, Neuter, and Common—but only three pronouns, (Masculine, Feminine, Neuter: he, she, it). It has been customary to utilize the Masculine form in double duty serving for the Common. But with today’s raw and irritable sensitivities, perhaps what we need is a new pronoun specific to the Common gender….

In other matters: if one were to tickle the foot of sleeping me, I would assuredly wake up, and in a grumpy mood!

Tickling is a form of torture, and I would happily Tase anyone who tickles me.

Questions like this are always trick questions. It’s as though one is supposed to predict how an entire population reacts. What if you knew people that had a reaction contrary to the majority? Would it be wrong for your explanation to focus on a specific population rather than a general one?

That foot belongs to someone in need of podiatric care. Just look at the toes tumbling over each other. Get thee to a podiatrist!