99 Stories of God

29. Ignorance

One of the schools I attended as a child arranged for our class to visit a slaughterhouse. This was both to prepare us for what the authorities called the real world as well as to show us what real work rather than intellectual labor sometimes consists of. We were bused to the facility, but there, more sensible heads prevailed, for we were not allowed inside. We neither saw nor heard any pigs, but we did see vast brown lagoons, which we were told were part of the operation, as well as a number of gleaming refrigerated trucks, their engines idling. There was also a smell that we had never been subjected to before.

Later in the semester, someone brought to our attention a newspaper article concerning a pig who saved a man from drowning. This pig, a pet, was swimming in a lake with its master. There were a number of people playing in the lake at the time, this being a holiday weekend. The pig, noticing a man in distress, swam over to him and by its actions indicated that he should grasp on to the harness which it always wore, being a pet. It then towed the fellow to safety.

The newspaper, which was a reliable one, maintained this story to be true. Later, the reporter mischievously posed this question:

Would the pig have rescued the man if she had known that he and his companions had just enjoyed a picnic of ham sandwiches?

The pig’s owner replied that pigs are intelligent, more intelligent than dogs, but they are not omniscient.