The Pig that Came to Dinner - The Swine Incident

By Queue Murphy
         We will never forget a baby pig that came to our house one day for dinner.  What started out as a  normal evening in our household quickly turned crazy in a matter of minutes! 

My kids go to a day camp on a farm.  I always thought the farmer had a good deal going – he charges people $200 a week for their kids to stay the day on his farm, clean the animals stalls, feed them, bathe them, exercise his horses, brush his horses, etc., etc…..although he does have to put up with all of our kids for the entire day – so maybe it isn’t so bad! 
     One of the things the kids get to do is sign out the animals for the night and take them home.  We have taken home goats, bunnies, ducklings, chicks, kitties, lambs, and even pigs over the years.  The kids walk them up and down the street in the evening, feed them and put them into the garage for the night in a crate.   Our house is quite popular on those days!  The bunnies, chicks, ducklings and kitties were never a problem.  The baby goats used to follow the kids around our yard like a lost puppy – but the goats never appreciated our friendly dog  and put their heads down to ram her and chase her around the yard.  The lamb left an absolute mess in my car and I was taking straw out for months afterward.  We brought home a baby pig one day – it was so small that the kids wrapped him in a blanket and fed him with a bottle.  We weren’t given a lid for his crate because we were told that, ‘pigs can’t jump.’  We proved that wrong the minute we brought him into the house – he leapt right out of that bin, and ran through the house with the dog right behind.  I don’t think our dog ever expected to see a pig in the kitchen, but then again, neither did I!
     Fondly remembering the baby pig we had taken home a few years before had us eagerly sign up to take another baby pig home.  When I arrived to pick up my kids after work, we walked to the stalls to get the baby pig.  We looked into the stall and I looked at my daughter as she pointed to the mother - a horse sized hog next to it to show it was indeed a baby pig.  The baby pig weighed 80 pounds and was very vocal.  We warily loaded the pig into the back of the Ford Flex with the help of 8 struggling 10-year-olds and started for home. 
                After dinner, the kids took the pig out into the yard for some exercise.  The pig found the only mud hole in the back of the yard, laid in it and wouldn’t move.  We tried to pull him to his feet to get him back in the crate and all he did was squeal.  Our dog, Daisy, tried to coax him up, at which point he jumped up and started pushing his nose under the lawn to root for who knows what.  Soon our lawn had 6 foot long rows of ruts and growing.  We grabbed a leash and tried to stop him, but he squealed and wriggled out as he was so muddy and wet.  The ruts grew in number and in length - soon we were all sliding in the mud!
     My 12-year-old son soon arrived from a cancelled baseball tournament – in a clean white uniform.    He tried to rope the pig again, but found the same results.  I was concerned about my son’s uniform getting stained, so I told him to take it off, wrestle the pig to the ground and get him in the crate.  He looked at me with wide eyes and said, ‘I only have my boxers on mom.’  I told him that they looked like shorts and it was getting dark and the mosquitoes were starting to bite all of us - he needed to do it quickly!  He begrudgingly took off his baseball uniform, crawled under the tree and grabbed the muddy pig.  The pig squealed, wriggled, bounded off and left my son lying in the mud.  My muddy boy then jumped up and started chasing the pig, with my daughter, a barking Daisy and a neighbor girl not far behind.  The pig squealed with glee, the dog tore in circles around him and the kids kept shouting directions to each other while mud and grass flew – this wasn’t working at all.
                My husband soon arrived at the gate in amazement and asked what in the heck was going on and why our 12-year-old was muddy, in his underwear and chasing a pig.  I told him we could discuss it later, but he had to help us.  My husband shouted for us all to get into the house as we were getting attacked by mosquitoes and the pig would just have to stay out in the yard.  We all ran into the house for relief and I started throwing towels at everyone to clean off and not walk on my carpet.  Within about a minute my daughter screamed for us to look at the window, and there was the pig – nose pressed against the sliding glass door,  wondering where we all went.  That’s all it took – he didn’t want to be alone and was having way too much fun at our expense….hmmmm….my husband brought the crate into the house, put it against the door and opened the sliding glass.  In jumped the lonely muddy pig and all was well. 
     Is there a moral to this story - let me try:  When bringing a pig home to dinner, don't encourage your children to wrestle them into the mud in their skivvies - the mud will never come out!  
                Will we bring a pig home again?  I think not, but it was a day we always remember in fondness –the day a pig came to dinner.  

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