Wilbur and Us Chapter 13...."The Painted Pig"

As Wilbur approached his second birthday his appearance started undergoing a transformation. He grew what I can only describe as tusks. He had two large pointed teeth come up from his bottom jaw, one on each side of his jaw that looked like mini elephant tusks. He also had two tusks like growths that came from the front of his lower jaw and grew back toward his neck; I call these his “side bars”. These side bar tusks have had to be trimmed once a year so they wouldn’t dig into his neck and cause him extreme discomfort.

Together, these tusks give Wilbur a kind of sinister look, but he has never used them to attack or hurt anyone, or the dogs. The only time I have had to look out for them is when Wilbur wants to show me love by rubbing up against my leg. He has accidentally scraped me a couple of times when he wanted me to pet him and I wasn’t paying attention. Wilbur has never had a mean or aggressive bone in his body and he has always been very affectionate.

Wilbur is also very smart, and I do mean VERY smart. This intelligence, coupled with his stubbornness, and his spoiled rottenness, can lead to trouble. I say this because Wilbur can be very sneaky when he wants something. The thing that makes Wilbur so bad besides this sneakiness is his persistence. When Wilbur wants something, like getting in the house, or illicit food, you have to either bar the doors, or watch him constantly because Wilbur will not stop until he has got what he wants; and if he doesn’t get what he wants, he is not above tearing up the patio to show his displeasure, call it throwing his weight around if you will.

When we bought our house in Homestead, all of the interior walls and ceilings throughout the whole house were painted white. After a year and a half of all white all of the time, Rhea decided we needed some color inside the house. She had just got hired as a bartender at a tiki bar in Florida City, which gave us some spare income. We picked out colors, and bought some latex paint on sale at the Home Depot. We brought the paint home and we went to work.

We were painting the living room ceiling and walls, when Wilbur managed to pry open the back patio doors with his bottom teeth. As soon as he walked into the house he smelled the paint and made a bee line for the nearest can. We have already talked about Wilbur’s love for the smell of gasoline; well we found out that he has the same fascination for house paint. While we were distracted painting the ceiling with a fresh coat of white, Wilbur walked over and dunked his snout in the paint can! Rhea saw him and shouted “get away from there” which startled Wilbur and made him back away from the can. Too late! Wilbur’s snout now had a fresh coat of white paint on it. I got a moist rag and washed most of the paint off of his snout, then kicked his butt back outside. However, he now knew that we had “yummy” paint inside, so he bided his time, and waited for his next opportunity.

This opportunity presented itself the next day after we finished painting Sean’s bedroom. Sean decided he wanted to paint his bedroom with his favorite color, a deep forest green. After we finished, we still had half a gallon of green paint, so in order to save money Jeff decided to mix some white paint with the green to paint his bedroom a light green. Rhea and I left to buy some more paint and left Jeff alone to paint his bedroom. After painting for an hour or so, Jeff thought he would take a cigarette break on the back patio.

Out back while Jeff was distracted lighting a cigarette, and grabbing a beer, Wilbur slipped into the house unnoticed. Wilbur in his nonchalant sneaky manner ambled down the hall to Jeff’s room to find the door had been left open. Wilbur went inside, found the can, and the roller tray filled with paint, and he had a grand old time! First he stuck his snout into the paint, then he knocked the can over on to the bedroom carpet, then he flipped over the roller tray. Now that he had a nice puddle of light green paint in the middle of the carpet he rolled his entire body in the puddle!

Rhea and I came home from the store to see Jeff relaxing on the back patio. “So, how goes the painting?” I asked, “Are you done yet?” “Nah not yet, I thought I would take a little beer, and cigarette break.” He replied. I looked around the patio, “Where’s Wilbur?” I asked him. “He was just here a second or two ago….” We ran down the hall to Jeff’s room and there he was, sleeping in the middle of a huge green spot in the middle of Jeff’s cream colored rug, covered head to toe in light green paint!

Rhea almost fainted, and I blew my stack. “Wilbur! Get your piggy ass outside NOW!” Wilbur got up with a start and ran down the hall, through the living room, and out the back doors leaving little light green piggy hoof prints behind him on the white tile floors.

Wilbur looked like some punk rocker gone amok with a tattoo gun. I took the hose and sprayed down. I managed to wash some of the paint off of him, but Wilbur’s skin was a nice light green for almost two years before all of the paint finally wore off. The rug in Jeff’s room had to be torn up and replaced, because no matter how many times we washed, and shampooed it, we never got the paint out.

You want to talk about the times that try a man’s soul? After this last escapade I was seriously considering having a block party with Wilbur as the main course.

Next: Wilbur “talks” to me.

Wilbur and Us Chapter 9...."Teen Pig"

Wilbur has always been his own pig, which means he has always been stubborn, and difficult to handle; but now that he had all these new hormones coursing through his body, he became even harder to handle. I’m sure any parent who has raised teenage children, can relate. Wilbur at the tender age of one and a half was now an obstinate, spoiled teenager.

When we first moved into our new home, it took Wilbur all of one day to decide that the large walk in closet in our bedroom would be his bedroom. This was very cute at first. Every night around 7 p.m. we would say “its bed time Wilbur”, and he would get up and make his way down the hall to our bedroom. He would (and still does) walk into the closet and close the door behind him with his snout. This was not a problem for me because he would go all the way to the back of the closet, and fall asleep. But like most teenagers, Wilbur got big, and lazy. He no longer could be bothered with walking all the way to the back of the closet to sleep; instead he would close the door, and fall asleep right behind the door. This would really irk me because at 3:30 in the morning I would try to get into the closet to get my clothes, only to find the door barricaded shut by a 300 pound pig! Not only that, but barricaded by a 300 pound, very grumpy when woke up by having a door continuously slammed into his ribs, pig. You would think that after getting woke up in this manner a few times, Wilbur would adjust, and sleep in the back again; but no, not Wilbur. Finally I got tired of fighting with him and started laying out my clothes the night before.

There was also another problem with Wilbur sleeping in our closet. For some unknown reason, Wilbur decided that the rug in our closet wasn’t comfortable enough for him to sleep on anymore. Wilbur’s remedy for this problem was to pull down any clothes he could reach, off of their hangers, and then sleep on them. He would also pull down any blankets, comforters, and towels he could reach on the shelves. The result of all of this was that our closet floor was always littered with what were once clean clothes, and bedding. Wilbur was becoming a nuisance of the first degree, and neat freak Rhea was at her wit’s end.

But the thing that finally drove Rhea over the brink was Wilbur’s urges. You know which urges I am talking about, the same urges that all teenage men have when testosterone is introduced into their system; the urge to propagate. Since Wilbur didn’t have a female pig he could cavort with, he started to hump the furniture. This was not good! Wilbur could not be left in the house unattended without something very bad happening to the beds or the couch.

After cleaning up after a couple of Wilbur’s conquests Rhea had had enough. “As of today, Wilbur is to be an outdoor pig!” Rhea exclaimed to me one afternoon. “I am not going to clean up after him again! I can’t take the mess, and I can’t take the smell! Our whole house is starting to smell like a barn!” She was right. All I could do was nod to her and say “you’re right dear.”

So it was, Wilbur was to be an outdoor pig. He was banished to the back porch, and back yard.

Later that night Wilbur began trying to open the back door so he could go to bed. I said to him “Sorry old boy, but you have really done it this time; mommy has put her foot down, you will have to stay outside tonight.” I closed the door tight so he couldn’t pry it open with his bottom teeth, turned the light off, and went to bed.

The next morning we woke up, looked out at the porch, and we were horrified. Wilbur decided to show his displeasure of being banished by throwing a temper tantrum over night. The back porch looked as if a bomb had gone off on it! All the patio chairs had been knocked over or off the porch, the gas grill had been toppled off the deck, my little refrigerator had been knocked about causing it open, all the contents of the refrigerator were strewn all over, and the plants demolished.

I went into a rage. “So, you want to throw a temper tantrum do you?!” I bellowed at Wilbur. “I’ll show you a temper tantrum!” I went at Wilbur with a rage he had never seen before. I came at him kicking and swinging. “You son of a bitch!” I yelled as I tore into him. Wilbur had never seen daddy this angry before, and ran as fast as he could away from me. Wilbur went to the far side of the yard where he watched me warily as I cleaned up his mess.

We were in a quandary. It became obvious to us that the lady who sold him to us knew what she was talking about when she recommended that we get Wilbur fixed. Now what were going to do?

Next: Wilbur gets a “girlfriend”