Boingboing quotes an article from 1932 about money-saving in the Depression era. The article says:
Now in many old houses and stores there are built-in refrigerators which waste ice like a toad wastes hops.
How might a toad waste hops?
Jumping back and forth?
They’re Devo fans?
Are they perhaps implying that the built-in refrigerators DON’T waste much ice? Because toads hop slowly and infrequently, they don’t waste hops.
We need more context on the quote. Are the built-in refrigerators they are referring to supposed to be wasting a lot of ice, or not wasting a lot of ice?
Toads are notorious for being sloppy drunks, spilling their beer with reckless abandon.
the humanity
Dammit, dwc, I came here to say “By not making beer!”. 
Here’s a link to the boingboing article:
The article seems to imply that toads ARE wasteful hoppers. Maybe this is an older idiom that I’m not getting, or that the authors got backwards; toads seem to rarely ever waste energy, to me.
OK, so I spend time admiring amphibians, I admit it.
I’ve never wasted hops. But hops has certainly wasted me.
We currently have two fire bellies, and, as a long-time observer of toads, I have to agree that they only hop when they really have to.
oops, wrong account
Maybe they’re talking about beer-brewing toads, who are notorious for their gross inefficiency in handling raw ingredients.
(edit: Just noticed Hypo-Toad riffing on the same theme.)
Or in the brewing of the beer. Too many hops in the warts.
Maybe they’re trying to say toads r dum for hopping when they could be waking, although it’s certainly a murky way to word it.
Okay, sorry for being away from this thread. The refrigs in question are wasteful. From too many conversations with a home brewer, I neglected the more obvious definition of hops. :rolleyes:
I am an idiot.
Edited to correct spelling of idiot
Warts and all…