Silverware Thief

Happy piggy, concerned responsible dog

One of the fun things about taking bicycle rides is you never know what you will come across. Sometimes you might see turkey vultures, other times . . . a pig.

Yes, this little piggy went to market. At least, he started that direction before he was sidetracked by the tasty leaves in the neighbor’s yard.

This was one of those double-take moments. As I approached the first thing I noticed was the van stopped in the rode. Then the dog. Then the–what? Big hairy over-sized thing. The pig? It took that second for me to realize what I was seeing and for one wild fraction of a second I thought there was some wild boar loose before reason thought better of such a wild (but appealing) idea.

Then I thought, “Cool. A pig. Somebody’s pig got loose and their dog tracked it down.”

By that time I had rode on past. In the next second I realized that the somebody whose pig was on the loose might need help capturing it. So I braked and swung the bike around and pedaled back to the idling van.

“Is that your pig?” I asked.

The old man rolled down his window. “No,” he said. “I just saw it and stopped.”

“Well, somebody has a pig on the loose,” I said.

“One very happy pig,” the man said, and drove away.

He was right. The fat little porker looked very . . . content. Blissful, in some charmingly ignorant sort of way. The dog, who obviously was much more intelligent and responsible and knew the pig belonged to its owner and was not where it ought to be, was standing guard in a solemn sort of way. It seemed to be willing the pig to get back where it belonged, but the pig continued to waddled about on the yard, eating leaves, wrinkling its nose in a pleased sort of way and rubbing its back against the mailbox post with a satisfied expression.

Neither of the animals seemed the least perturb by my presence. The dog even came up and sniffed me in a friendly greeting, almost as if asking me if I could do something.

By this time I realized I had a loose pig on my hands with nobody around to claim it. I didn’t feel I could rightly turn around and leave without making a good faith effort to inform somebody. I suspected the pig–by its domesticated demeanor–hadn’t traveled very far and likely belonged to some house nearby. But which one? It was 10:00 AM Saturday morning. If I went ringing the wrong bell I could be potentially waking up the wrong person to tell them a pig was on the loose. I could see how that would play out:

“Pig? What pig? There is no pig around these parts! Get away from here, you creep!”

Or something like that. I don’t care to ring anybody’s doorbell at any time, but especially not at 10:00 AM Saturday morning to ask them if they have a pig on the loose. But there was the pig to think of, who was clearly too stupid to care about traffic on the road, or much of anything else. So I tried to take an educated guess. I first started toward the house across the street, but a brief inspection didn’t show any outdoor structure to hold a pig, and the house was rather dingy . . . the king of place where if your rung the bell you might be waking up some hairy man who had a really bad hang-over from hitting the bars Friday night. Before I went knocking on that door I wanted to make sure it wasn’t a neighbor who owned the piggy.

The next house up the street was well kept and had some type of shed out back that maybe could house a pig. The house didn’t look like the sort of place people would live who kept a pig, but then if I was wrong I’d probably be kicking some middle class couple out of a relaxing morning in bed, not somebody who might let the dogs loose on me. One needs to thinkg about these sort of things, you know.

Faced with the uncertainty, I decided to go ring the middle-class people’s door. If they didn’t own the pig maybe they would know which neighbor did and save me from knocking on another wrong door.

I rung the bell. I rung it again. Either nobody was home, or else they were hoping the hairy bicyclist on the front step would go away before they called the cops. So I left and went back to the dingy house. Bracing myself, I crossed the uncut lawn and climb the porch. There was a big cheap table set up on the porch with various odds and ends scattered about. The front door was open ajar and inside I could see junk stacked along the walls.

“Well, here it goes,” I thought, and knocked on the screen door.

The curtain twitched.

“Ya?”

“Um, do you have a pig?”

“Ya.”

“Did you know it was loose?”

“Ya.”

The answers were clipped and short. For all the information they contained the hidden speaker could be hostile, suspicious, retarded, or terrified.

“Well, okay,” I said, and started to leave. I had done my duty. I wasn’t going to stick around and wait for someone to start shooting.

“Thank you,” the disembodied voice called after me, perhaps deciding that I really had only come to relay some helpful information, not launch into a tirade.

I left, and who knows if I will see the pig again.

I liked the piggy, which is strange, because, while I like animals in general, I haven’t had any particular affection for any pigs I’ve met before. But this one looked cute and funny in the stupid sort of way that I find so appealing–the same kind of stupid as ducks. The kind of stupid that makes me want to say, “Ha, ha! Look at that stupid little fellow! I want one! He looks so dumb and happy!”

Maybe you understand. Maybe you don’t.

Very naughty (but happy) little piggy