Name calling

I was sitting on  my back porch the other afternoon staring across the paddock vacantly as I like to do and I saw a very mis-shapen sheep. It looked terrible. It was lying on its side looking very grotesque like it was dead and bloated. I stared at it for a minute or two and then realised it was not a dead sheep. It was not even a sheep but a pig. A big, white, fat kunekune pig. From the neighbours several paddocks away. It was lying next to our fence snoozing, a long way from home but 300 metres from my house.

Anyway this irrational desire to shout something like "you big fat pig" started to burble up inside me. Trying to resist shouting it out was too much so I gave in and shouted across the paddock "you big fat pig".  Normally calling something a big fat pig is frowned upon. It is not nice to name call. But this time I felt it was ok. It was big. It was fat. And it was a pig. No problem.

There is more to this story.

After a minute I saw the pig wriggle onto its stomach, open its eyes and stare at me. I could feel its little piggy eyes boring into me from 300 metres away. I felt a little bit uncomfortable.

It sat there staring. I sat there squirming.

Then I started to think to myself. How did that pig get there? If it had pushed its way through several  fences to get to our paddocks maybe it would keep pushing through fences and eat my vegetable garden? And although the gate to the paddock it was in was closed, could it wriggle its way under the gate and come up my drive towards my tasty beans?

At that point the pig rolled over and shuddered to its feet and at that point I started wondering who would win the race to the gate to my drive. Could I cover 50 metres quicker than an overweight pig could cover 300 metres.

I decided not to wait until the pig started running. Whistling casually I sauntered to the gate and shut it. The pig had not even put its running shoes on. It was munching on grass oblivious to me. Eventually it munched its way over a rise and disappeared.

I am not sure what the moral of that story was.