Boredom, Crossword Puzzles, and Pigs

(Incidentally, I spelled 'boredom' wrong in the title the first time. I spelled it 'boredome'.)

Only one hour and forty-six minutes left. That means I have been here for twelve hours and fourteen minutes.

I love it when crossword puzzle clues are puns. Check out this one that I found in my copy of Penny Press Good Times Crossword Puzzles:

44d: Stage Hog

The answer: Ham

Ha ha ha ha ha ha. See, a ham is someone who would monopolize the stage, but it is also a kind of meat that comes from a pig. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

I got this clue right away, probably due to my extensive background in swine raising. For those of you who don't know, I did 4-H growing up. It wasn't wimpy dog or sewing 4-H. It was livestock. Over the course of six years, I raised and sold twelve pigs. I named them, fed them, gave them baths, and then five months later, sold them for candy money. My mom likes to tell a story (possibly apocryphal) about how I was crying after selling my first pigs (Hamlet and Swinestein- my pigs always had awesome names), but then they handed me the check, and I stopped crying. She also says that when I was four, I asked, “Why don’t all the poor people just get jobs?” Maybe my parents shouldn’t have sent me to Ayn Rand preschool.

My favorite pig was a Duroc gilt (gilt: female pig that has yet to produce a litter.) named Indiana Jones. My other pig that year was named Ace Ventura. These were my two favorite movie characters in fifth grade. Indy was the GRAND CHAMPION at the Lincoln County Spring Fair. This sounds impressive, until you learn that there were about nine other pigs participating at the Lincoln County Spring Fair.

Side note: Spring Fair usually occurred around April 19th, so I spent many of my birthdays in a horse trailer, washing pigs. I would highly recommend this for your next birthday celebration.

Side note 2: My dad has a picture on the wall of his office that is of me, at the Spring Fair, wearing an American flag western shirt, in turquoise cowboy boots, with a bowl cut. I definitely picked out each element of that outfit myself, including the bowl cut. How embarrassing. One downside to being an only child is that all terrible childhood photos are definitely of you.

However, Indy also received a purple ribbon at the Spokane Junior Livestock Show, the largest junior livestock show west of the Mississippi.

Perhaps you’re not that impressed with a purple ribbon. You think, “Blue is the best.” Well, prepare for your world to be rocked. Purple is actually the best. Purple is saying, “You are so awesome that blue isn’t even good enough for you.” It’s like the ribbon authorities got together and decided that some things are so great that they had to create a whole new category to describe the glory. That category is: PURPLE. That is what my pig won. RIP, Indy. You were a damn fine hog.