July 27, 2014
My Memories of The Three Little Pigs
An installment of Fairy Tale Theater
Once upon a time there were three pigs that lived in the woods and stop right there. The woods? Do pigs live in the woods? I don’t really know. In Lord of the Flies there’s a wild boar that lives on an island, and I know that for awhile people kept pot-bellied pigs as pets (why????) but do pigs live in the woods? I don’t know. I’m a city guy. I’ve only seen pigs in farms on TV. We must be talking about the same woods in which talking bears steal pic-a-nic baskets. And wear ties and porkpie hats.
So these three pigs, seemingly against all odds, lived in the woods. And to up the unbelievability ante, they A- talked, B- walked upright, and C- lived in their own, mortgage free houses. Plus they wore shirts but no pants, Porky Pig style.
Things were pretty good for these pigs. They were lazy and didn’t do a lick of work all day. Their houses were long-ago paid off, and their meals were brought in by local volunteers who delivered food to shut-ins. Oh sure, most days they spent by the pool drinking pina coladas and texting selfies to each other, but when it was time for their meals to arrive, they hopped in their totally unnecessary wheelchairs, affected coughs, and waited by their front doors, forks and knives at the ready.
Well, as you’d imagine, there were other people- er, animals- in the woods who were pretty mad at these 1 percenter pigs. One in particular, a wolf, had a real mad on and wanted to redistribute some of the pigs wealth right into his belly, preferably after roasting them over a spit. This wolf was once a part of the Occupy The Enchanted Forest movement, so you know he had never worked a day in his life. But really, can we blame him? If your parents had named you Big Bad, what chances of getting a job in a Fortune 500 company would you have? Will the New York Stock Market ever gain ten points at the thought of Big Bad Finklestein being named CEO of Bloomberg Media LLC? I think not. So go easy on The Big Bad Wolf. He’s a product of his environment.
One day The Big Bad Wolf was particularly hungry. He was also particularly smelly too, but hey, that’s just another day in the Occupy movement. So one day, as he watched one of the pigs lounging by his pool and ordering new smart phones to give out at Christmas to all his rich friends, the wolf reached his limit. That pig was just so fat and succulent that the wolf just couldn’t take it anymore. “That’s all I can stands, I can’t stands no more!” he said, stealing one of Popeye’s catch phrases. He should have kept his mouth shut because that totally gave him away and the pig ran into his house, slamming the door right in The Big Bad Wolf’s face. (Snout? Whatever.)
Problem was, the pig’s house, like his fortune, was made out of straw. The pig wasn’t really a rich 1 percenter, and could only afford to build a house out of straw. All he cared about was appearances. And those smart phones he was ordering? He was way over his credit line anyway.
The wolf knew that no straw house would keep him out, so he huffed, and he puffed, and no, you really can’t blow a house of straw down, but he was able to more or less rip it apart with his bare hands. (Paws, claws, whatever.)
The pig ran off screaming.
The hungry wolf pawed through the straw but the only food he found was pimentos and Fresca. He took off after the pig, who had zoomed to his brother’s house and locked the door.
The second pig had done a little better for himself in the stock market and built his house out of wood, which I think we can all agree is much more sensible than straw. On the other hand, this pig was also a big Selena Gomez fan and spent a lot of time writing nasty letters to Justin Bieber, for which there was a restraining order against him. If he had spent more time on his investments and less time threatening Bieber he could have had a better home made of brick, but wood was still ok.
The wolf showed up and he was still determined to eat the pigs. Unfortunately, wood is a little harder to tear down than straw. The wolf tried to go in through the window, but the house was in a sketchy part of the forest and the windows were barred.
“Ha ha ha!” the pigs laughed, and it sounded just like that- ha ha ha, like in a comic book. “What are you going to do now, loser? Huff and puff and blow the house down?”
The wolf, being more of a wolf of action than words, took an axe and brought down the front door. “Heeeeere’s Johnny!” he cried, in a reference to Jack Nicholson in The Shining that most kids today won’t get. The pigs started squealing like, er, pigs, and ran out the back way.
The pair of bacony porkers ended up at the gated community where the third brother lived. There was a sauna and hot tub, and there was even a really good Thai restaurant so none of them had to leave if they didn’t want to. The Big Bad Wolf showed up but the security guards chased him off. He was last seen harassing Little Red Riding Hood, because seriously, what are the odds that there would be two wolves like this?
The moral of the story? Eat the rich is more than just an expression, some of them are full of flavor.
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