A man preparing a steak-and-salad dinner was stunned to discover a live frog among the lettuce inside a sealed plastic bag. He had bought the lettuce while grocery shopping at a Woolworths supermarket with his partner.
The man, Australian farmer Rhys Smoker, said he was making dinner on Saturday for the three people who share his house in Esperance when he encountered the critter in his lettuce.
“He’s like, ‘Oh, Bro, there’s a frog in the lettuce.’ And we’re like, ‘No, you’re taking the mick, like that’s not real,’” Smoker’s housemate Laura Jones told The Associated Press, meaning that she thought he was kidding.
So, to prove he was telling the truth, Smoker brought the bag out to show Jones and her partner, Billy Le Pine.
“Obviously, there’s a little frog hiding out and, yeah, we all had a little laugh about it,” Jones said.
Le Pine told the Australian Broadcasting Corp., “It’s quite a decent-sized frog for a big adventure. It would have probably come from east. Most of our vegetables come from eastern Australia to Esperance.
“The bag of lettuce does have holes in it to keep the produce fresh, so he had a snack and some air on his way over.”
Also, obviously, they named the little frog Greg
“We thought we’d give him a wee send off tune as we played ‘Crazy Frog’ for him,” Le Pine recalled to the Australian Broadcasting Corp. The group eventually released the frog, Greg, into a nearby dam.
“We got him some fresh air, and then he released it with the lettuce,” Jones said. “We live close to a dam … [he] had a little swim around with his lettuce … and away he hopped.”
“That was the most random thing I’ve ever encountered while opening a bag of lettuce,” Le Pine said. “I’m just glad Greg is back in his natural habitat.”
Woolworths says it has launched an internal investigation into the incident with its suppliers “as a priority.” The supermarket chain also added that Greg the frog was “an isolated event with no other reported cases.”