Sh*t Happens

In February of 2020, Jeff and I went on a cruise to the Bahamas with our friend for her milestone birthday. A true lover of life and explorer of all things new and unique, she had decided that for her special birthday activity she wanted us to go with her on a swimming-with-PIGS excursion.

Feeling a bit puzzled yet intrigued, I shared her request with Jeff. Having grown up working on a pig farm, Jeff looked up from the magazine he was reading, made eye contact with me just slightly over the edge of his glasses, and simply said, “okay” and went back to reading. I found this to be a rather peculiar response from him, especially given the high cost of the activity but figured maybe he didn’t hear the cost, so carried on to begin my research on swimming with the pigs.

Now, to qualify “research,” what I actually mean is that I did what every woman of the millennial generation does: I sourced my information from Pinterest. I must admit, the further down the Bahamian Piggy Pinterest hole I went, the more excited I became. The images of standing in 80-degree turquoise waters with white sandy beaches, snuggling with tiny pink piggies, and a margarita bar only feet away were nothing shy of Instagram-worthy. I had the whole thing planned out in my mind, the pose I’d take with my piggy, I bought a new bathing suit and I even began my hashtag research in preparation for my best IG moment! I was ready, and it was going to be glorious!

Jeff said nothing further about swimming with the pigs in the days leading up to the event - not even once - and he certainly didn’t say anything the day of. As the ship came into port, we made our way down the dock and walked down a white sandy pathway onto the beach.

It was exactly like in Pinterest - turquoise waters and all - and the weather was gorgeous! Jeff even surprised me by telling me he had paid for a professional photographer to take photos for us. I couldn’t believe it! Our tour guide handed each of us a zippie-bag filled with apple skewers and instructed us to go into the water. I danced across the sand, into the warm water, skewer in hand, mindful to only show my ‘good side’ to the photographer and ready for my moment.

The tour guide began his instructions:
“Before we bring the pigs out, a few things you need to know. The pigs love apples. They will work for apples and will come to you if you hold out your skewer. But when you hold out your skewer, make sure you hold it off to your side and not directly in front of you. If you hold the skewer in front of you the pigs are going to swim right into you and we don’t want anyone to get hurt. Make sure you stay calm, and don’t run because if you run and you have apples, the pigs will run after you”.

This was about the point at which I began to question the validity of my research abilities.

“Okay everyone, ARE YOU REAADY?” he boomed.
“YEAHHHHH” exclaimed everyone but me.

I was standing there, wide-eyed, one eyebrow raised, skewer in hand, very quietly questioning what was about to unfold. I glanced to my right only to see Jeff grinning ear to ear and chuckling quietly while looking back at me.

I looked back to the tour guide in time to see him cup his hands on either side of his mouth to project his voice, “BRING OUT THE PIGS!”

A moment of silence and then it began. In an instant what I had envisioned to be adorable 10lbs piglets bounding through the sand sounded like a herd of enraged hippopotami charging toward us. The sound continued to get louder and closer until they finally emerged from behind the row of palm trees. An entire heard of 500lb swine charging full force towards us with T-Rex teeth, gigantic tusks, scraggly coarse grey, and black hair, and they were definitely not squealing of happiness, they were snorting and grumbling as they charged towards us in full-tilt apple-hunt frenzy.

Standing there, watching this unfold with my skewer in hand, my nervous system went from “freeze mode” to “flight mode” almost immediately. But I didn’t want to run for fear I would be trampled by the revenge of Wilbur’s tribe. Watching them begin to enter the water, their speed naturally slowed down and they began swimming towards those with apples.

But here’s the thing: it was at that point Jeff enlightened me that pigs are very clean animals who don’t like to do their bathroom business in their pens, which meant that as soon as their bodies hit the turquoise waters I immediately began to notice large logs of poop floating around, at which point I legitimately began to cry and laugh at the same time. All the while Jeff was also crying (from laughing so hard) and exclaiming to everyone who would listen, “this is the best money I have ever spent!” He then proceeded to kiss me on the forehead, put one hand on each of my shoulders to turn beside one of the swine and said “smile for the camera!”

Now, why am I sharing this story you might ask? I’m sharing simply as a reminder that sometimes in life, there are moments where things don’t go according to plan, and there will be times when on your journey you are going to get shit on (hopefully not literally). With all things in life, when you set out on a journey, there is the image of what getting there is going to look like, and then there is the reality of what it actually is. It is easy to look at someone’s Instagram photos and see nothing but their success and think “I want that.” But the reality is, behind those photos of babes and bikinis, someone had to wade through a whole pile of shit to get there (or may still be going through it behind-the-scenes).