I'm not really a country boy by training. I grew up in town, and only moved out to the farm a couple of years ago. Farming for me is a new experience, a good antidote to my mild mannered stockbroker existence, but I'm still not completely "converted". So when the phone rang at six-thirty this morning, I jumped out of bed. No one ever calls that early, so I figured it must be an emergency.
It was my neighbor, about a mile down the road.
"Did you lose any pigs?" She asked.
"What?" I replied sleepily. "Uh, no. I don't own any at this time."
"Well they are here in my front yard, eating my shrubs!" she said, sounding peeved.
"How many pigs?"
"Two. Big ones!"
"How big?"
"As big as my dog!"
She owns a Jack Russell Terrier. "You mean Lester?" I said.
"No, the other dog!"
"I didn't know you had another dog." I still hadn't woken up completely.
"Well come get them!" she said. "They're eating my rhododendron!"
"Your dogs?"
"No, the pigs!"
"Oh, right." I hung up the phone, and went back into the bedroom and started to pull on some sweats.
"Who was that?" my wife mumbled.
"Annie Smith. She wants me to come get the pigs out of her bushes."
"What?" Connie said. "We don't have any pigs!"
"I know."
"Then why are you going to get them?"
"Uh..." That was a very good question, one that I was wishing that I had thought to ask Annie before I hung up. "...I dunno." Connie rolled her eyes and went back to sleep as I grabbed my keys and shuffled out the door.
I hooked up the horse trailer and drove to Annie's house. She was out in the front yard waving a stick at two little, pink, hundred-pound shoats.
I got out of the truck. "Morning, Annie!"
"Glad you could make it! These pigs have already eaten most of my leftover casserole from dinner last night!"
"I guess they like your cooking. Where are your boys?" Annie has two teenaged sons living at home.
"Upstairs asleep." Annie said.
"Why don't you get them to come help us catch these guys?"
"It's spring break. They're tired."
So was I. Only I don't get spring break anymore. I grabbed a stale chocolate doughnut off the floorboard of the farm truck and walked toward the shoats, who were still eyeing Annie's casserole dish. When they turned toward me, one of them saw the doughnut and came right over to me. I guess he liked Chocolate. I gave him the doughnut, then grabbed his big, floppy ear and led him, wiggling and screaming like a naughty schoolkid over to the truck, and put him inside. Only after I got the door shut did I stop the wiggling and screaming.
Then I went back to get the other one. But there was one problem, it didn't like Chocolate doughnuts.
Annie wasn't about to sacrifice any more of her casserole to the cause, so I dug around in my truck some more and came out with...a sweet potato pie. I'm not making this up. Exactly how the sweet potato pie ended up in my truck is another story all by itself, but I won't go into it now.
Anyway, the second pig only looked vaguely interested as I waved the pie at it. I tried getting closer, but it was more skittish than the first pig had been, and darted away. This went on for about fifteen minutes, with me following it around with the sweet potato pie, and it running from me every time I got close.
I was starting to get irritated. “That’s it.” I said. I was going to catch this dumb pig. “I’m done fooling around.” I set the pie on the floor of the open trailer, and took off after the pig at a dead run. Now I’m not in bad shape, and I’ve never known a pig that finished a marathon, (I’ve done a couple) so I figured that if I chased him long enough, I’d be able to wear him down. By now it was about seven o’clock, and the neighbors were starting to come by on their way to work. They were greeted by the sight of me, running full tilt around a small hayfield after a rather small, but incredibly fast pink pig. This went on for, I think, four hours. Well, maybe it wasn’t quite that long, but it seemed like it. Finally, I was bent over double in the middle of the street, heaving like a hyperventilating hippopotamus (say that ten times fast) and the pig was wandering around contentedly, none the worse for wear. While I was busy trying to get enough oxygen to my brain to restore my vision without yacking up my spleen, the pig, apparently drawn by the sweet potato pie, nonchalantly climbed up into the trailer, and started snacking.
Annie walked over and closed the gate on the trailer. “Good goin!” she said.
I nodded and waved weakly as I hobbled over to the truck. “No (GASP!) Problem. (HEAVE!) Any (PANT!) time. (WHEEZE!)”
I called around later once I’d recovered and tried to figure out whose pigs they were. No one knew of anyone who’d lost them.
Strangely enough, I’m still missing two goats from the day last month when my son “liberated” four of ours. Perhaps someone found them, and didn’t have room to keep them, so they had to let a few pigs go?
Anyone know who to contact about a lost pig? I don’t think the local humane society would know what to do with them, since we live in a fairly suburban area near Washington, DC. Plus, I’m afraid that I might get in trouble for feeding them junk food.
-- 
Chuck (woah@mission4me.com), April 01, 2002