Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Poor Tinkerbell.

We live with a pig. Our friends -- whose house we're staying in while they're on vacation and for a few months after they return until our new container house, which they are building on their property, is ready -- have a pig named Tinkerbell, and she is turning into a bit of problem child. What does she want?

I can't cook with her in the kitchen (she's huge and unyielding and constantly begs for food or attention or whatever, butting her big wet snout against my legs), so I shoo her out. She just gripes at me and won't move until I push her, sometimes with a chair (gently) because frankly I'm a little afraid of her. The other day, she bit my big toe. She didn't do any damage, but it did hurt a little.

The last couple of mornings, she's been intense and persistent. When I go to the kitchen to make coffee or refill my cup, she scurries over to me and butts my legs . So I've taken to running from her. There's kind of a lap around an island formed by the stove and a table between the kitchen and the big main room, so I run in, fill my cup with coffee, and when she comes at me I walk around the island, she follows me, I grab the 1/2 and 1/2 as I pass by the fridge, pour some in my coffee quickly because she's coming around behind me, return the 1/2 and 1/2 to the fridge and grab my coffee, she's on my tail but I'm out the door before she catches up.

It sounds funny and it is, but I can tell she's unhappy. There are several big pillows on the floor that she sleeps with, and when she gets frustrated because I'm running from her or pushing her out of the way, she throws the pillows around, and yesterday she tore one of them up.

J put up dog gates in the doorways to our half of the house, so Tinkerbell and Bones the boxer can't come back here -- so that Timmy the cat can escape from them when he wants to, but they serve the same purpose for us. Tinkerbell smashed through one of the gates this morning. My friend A told me yesterday about a friend of hers who had a pig who, when it got too big to stay in the house and they put it in the yard, would tear right through the screen door.

The photo is not Tinkerbell, but that's just what she looks like.

3 comments:

xoxoxo said...

Maybe if they'd named her Wilbur?

Sounds like she's lonely, wants attention. Or your toe looks yummy.

Steven said...

It turns that's exactly what she is: lonely. M emailed us that "about once a month she gets frisky and you just have to stick your foot in her face and say 'No!'"

jdjb said...

aka, she has an aunt visiting from Red Bank, NJ.