Ever since
I moved to Georgia from Chicago three years ago, I've occasionally found myself
in the middle of what my husband and I call a "Georgia experience."
These are incidents that would never occur up north, like when you go to a
restaurant and you have to order three different things before the server
finally tells you that they actually have that item in the kitchen. Or when you
go to a flea market and find it filled with morbidly obese men wearing overalls
without shirts who are selling ducks and piglets in cages. Or out of curiosity
you go into something called a 99 cent grocery store and discover that the
groceries are so cheap because they all expired at least two years ago. How is
that even legal? The store has a permanent location with a sign. Up north, the
store with a shelf full of expired Children's Tylenol would have been shut down
before the paint on their misspelled sign was dry. On the other hand, I guess there's
something relaxed about this approach to life. But, still, expired drugs?
My favorite
recent "Georgia experience" happened last week. My friend Melissa
moved down here from Michigan two years ago, and like me, she's fascinated by
the cultural differences. She used to live in the city up north, but when she
and her mom came down here, they bought a place that came with a few acres.
They love it out there and even got a few goats to keep them company. Then one
morning last week, they woke up to discover two pigs running around the yard
freaking out the goats. They weren't big pigs; nowhere near full grown. They
were cute and hungry. Melissa's mom fed them.
 | ||
| Pebbles the Goat versus Trespasser the Pig. Thanks to Melissa for the photo. |
They
started a neighborhood search for where the pigs might have come from, but no
luck. They called the county sheriff, but he said his office couldn't do
anything about pigs. He did warn them to get rid of the pigs, though, because
they can reach 800 pounds (seriously?), and by then they're completely
unmanageable. They called animal control, but they won't come out to deal with
any animals. You have to catch them and bring them to the office. Again,
seriously? Up north, catching stray animals is the purpose of animal control.
But apparently, the Georgia approach is to let the beasts run free until they
either run away or get hit by a car.
Finally,
Melissa's mom found a "pig lady" who agreed to come over and collect
the pigs for a friend of hers. Melissa called me, too, in hopes of having an
extra set of hands to help catch the pigs. Why she thought I'd be any use is
anyone's guess. Maybe she had already asked her competent friends, and they all
said no. Seeing as I'm completely clueless, I jumped into my pig-catching boots
and drove on over.
You know the
expression "slippery as a greased pig"? Turns out, they don't have to
be greased to be slippery. Technically, I don't know if they were slippery or
not because they wouldn't let any of us lay a finger on them. They were
especially good at dashing under thorn bushes (where did all these thorn bushes
come from?) just as we were closing in.
The pig
lady told us, "Grab 'em by the back legs so they don't bite you."
I said,
"I can't. I'm from Chicago."
She looked
at me like I had three heads.
When it
became evident that we weren't getting our hands on the pigs, the pig lady announced
we needed a tranquilizer gun. That would slow them down, and she could get them
in her truck. Sadly, no one had a tranq gun. That's when the pig lady called
animal control and asked to borrow theirs. I heard the animal control lady on
the other end of the phone say, "Y'all still trying to catch them
pigs?" Like it was the most normal thing in the world.
The animal
control lady wouldn't lend us the county tranq gun, and as we know, they certainly
wouldn't come out to deal with an animal problem. So the pig lady told Melissa
and me to go to a nearby cow farm and ask to borrow gun. Strangely, the way she
said it made it sound like a reasonable plan.
Melissa and
I followed the pig lady's directions and ended up at three different farms in what
we thought was the right general vicinity. One farm had a dog that became Cujo
when Melissa went in search of the farmer. Another had a cat who came out to
greet us, but there was no farmer in sight. And then there was this cow who practically
had a thought bubble over her head that read, "You two Yankees are
idiots." It was when the cows knew we were being stupid that Melissa and I
gave up and went home. No one had been willing to help with our pig problem.
So the pigs
are still there. They disappeared for a couple days, and we had hope that maybe
they had gone home. But then they showed up again, dirty and hungry and wilder than before. I wonder if the pigs realize they're living a "Georgia
experience"?
EPILOGUE: The pigs found a new home today! A local man (we'll call him the goat guy) and his wife have something of a menagerie on their 10 acres, and they wanted the pigs as pets. He brought a butterfly net and a dog crate to collect them. Not surprisingly, when the goat guy showed up, the first thing he did was ask Melissa if she had a tranquilizer gun. (Now she knows what she's asking Santa for this Christmas.) Sadly I couldn't be there today, but Melissa tells a tale of grown adults running around for three hours trying to trap two little pigs. By the time everyone was filthy and exhausted, the pigs were in their crate and on their way to a new home. Melissa and her mom were left with the challenge of coaxing their goats off the pile of hay bales where they took refuge from the scary little pigs. Probably they're not coming down until they see Melissa pulling her new tranquilizer gun out of the car. It's the hot fashion accessory for well-dressed women in Georgia.
EPILOGUE: The pigs found a new home today! A local man (we'll call him the goat guy) and his wife have something of a menagerie on their 10 acres, and they wanted the pigs as pets. He brought a butterfly net and a dog crate to collect them. Not surprisingly, when the goat guy showed up, the first thing he did was ask Melissa if she had a tranquilizer gun. (Now she knows what she's asking Santa for this Christmas.) Sadly I couldn't be there today, but Melissa tells a tale of grown adults running around for three hours trying to trap two little pigs. By the time everyone was filthy and exhausted, the pigs were in their crate and on their way to a new home. Melissa and her mom were left with the challenge of coaxing their goats off the pile of hay bales where they took refuge from the scary little pigs. Probably they're not coming down until they see Melissa pulling her new tranquilizer gun out of the car. It's the hot fashion accessory for well-dressed women in Georgia.
