The Pigs’ Night of Reckless Debauchery

Making Plans

I’ve already told you about the pigs’ inclination towards food, the blissful state of being it puts them in and of the great lengths that Finn will go to break into stock piles of it.  Well, they’re at it again.

The sheep food sat high up, stacked upon another feed bucket.  Both buckets sat meticulously in the corner of the porch, so that it would be difficult to push them into a position to knock them over.  A green blanket was wrapped over both buckets and tucked underneath to prevent the two food addicts from being able to easily grab at them with their teeth or nudge open the lids.  We also naively hoped the blanket would add just the right added measure of difficulty to keep the pigs at bay.

We were wrong.

Finnemore as it turns out has quite a strategic head on his shoulders.  I can see our little mastermind deviously and fastidiously making preparations for the next great feed bucket break-in.  I can see him gently reminding an over eager Chesapeake foaming at the mouth to “act naturally,” to wait until the humans were out of the way.  And then I imagine the moment the lights in the house go off, the two pigs trotting to the house in haste with their tiny little legs moving with quiet finesse.  They climb the mighty heights of the back porch stairs and  together the two of them launch an assault on the feed bucket.  First the blanket is ripped away revealing what they suspected all along.  And then together they begin to push the buckets into a new position, rocking them hard back and forth.  (I’ve seen them collaborate like this before).  Until at last, the top bucket drops, the lid is hurriedly pushed over, and a veritable treasure-trove of sheep feed bursts forth.

What follows is an obscene display of merrymaking and degenerate dining.  Each pig stuffs his face with food until he can’t fit any more into his stomach and then like the ancient Romans he vomits it up and continues eating with the same contented, but bloated, look on his face (we saw the vomit later that night).  Finally, when even they can eat no more, they swagger back to the barn to rest their stomachs, heavy with sheep feed, and know there won’t be much the humans can do to them when they return.

And the humans don’t have much they can do when they return except shovel the leftover feed back in the bucket and try to come up with a better way of storing the feed in the few protected spaces that they have, not just for the good of the feed, but the good of the pigs.  The humans know the pigs will pay for their night of reckless debauchery through the night and perhaps into the morning.