One day during office hours, a scruffy old farmer in worn overalls who breathed through his mouth, brought in a little 2 day old piglet. He said “Doc, this here pig done got no hole”. What happened next was like Christmas on a sunny Spring day. The farmer looked at me, and then my Dad. He said “Doc, if you can fix this here pig, that pretty little girl can keep him”... and he pointed at me! My Dad picked up the little pink piglet – when their eyes met I saw a short exchange of mutual respect. I watched carefully as Dad looked in her ears, nose, and mouth. She looked like a fine pig to my little trained eye. Dad then turned her around to inspect her other end. The piglet looked me in the eye and I am sure she smiled. I felt us bond immediately and I could tell she was just as busy as I was imagining our new life together. Her name would be "Scout".
As Dad examined her posterior, I soon realized what the farmer meant when he said that the pig “done got no hole”….she had been born without a rectum. As luck would have it, not only was I about to get a pig, but it was a perfect little pig. In my mind there was nothing to fix. This piglet without a “hole” was intelligent design at its best. It would get to be a house pig. The possibilities for a perfect pig were endless. She was virtually maintenance free and I would be able to teach her tricks and she loved me. That farmer who breathed through his mouth, was the nicest man in the world.
Before Dad had the chance to explain the inherent flaws of a piglet without a “hole”, I had bolted out the door, untied Beauty and headed home. What was Beauty’s value as a 33 year old babysitting pony, was also her shortcoming when one had important news with which to taunt her older siblings …Beauty had but one speed. Unlike newer models in our stable that could walk, trot, canter, and gallop, Beauty only walked. And, it wasn’t a fast walk. I rushed home as fast as one could rush on Beauty. When we got home I flew in the back door and found my older siblings Jack and Liz sitting at the kitchen table eating our cook Myrtle’s fresh chocolate chip cookies. I shouted that I was getting a perfect little pig named Scout, and she was going to get to sleep with me in my bed, and she would never have to be housebroken like our other pets, so she would only go outside because she wanted to,
not because she had to….and, they could never pet her unless they asked me first. They each helped themselves to another cookie without ever looking up, as if I wasn’t even there and they hadn’t heard me. Jack looked up and said to Liz “did you hear something?” Liz looked back at him and said “no, I don’t think so.” But they heard me just fine.
That night at dinner Dad brought the good news with the bad: for reasons I did not completely understand, the piglet had to get a “hole”. Dad explained it in professional medical terms. The gist of it was that if food went in one end there had to be an exit point at the other. It must have been some kind of swine rule. Not to be discouraged I suggested that we get around the problem by not putting anything in her mouth, thus eliminating the need for an exit. Who would have thought I could improve on the intelligent design? I now had a pet that I didn’t need to clean up after or let out, and thanks to my enhancement, Scout no longer even needed feeding. She wasn’t going to cost a thing, less work even than my ant farm or sea monkeys. Everyone would want one. I started planning for Scout to have babies. Before I got too far, Dad came back with more obstacles - the surgery was complicated and a very high risk procedure. The good news was that the surgery would be the next morning. I had no worries, the Doctor was my Dad, and he could fix anything…..as it was, anything but this little pig. It turns out that Scout had a number of other birth defects that prevented a successful outcome. Life with my perfect little pig was never meant to be.☹
