Thread: You Just Can't Make This Stuff Up

Ken, the Pig and I
-B.R. Moroni

I was once, a few years ago, sent to an animal lab in a New York City hospital with Ken, a fellow engineer from my company, to test a new laproscopic surgical instrument on a pig. I had participated in pig labs before so I was okay with the idea. I went once to Kansas City, MO to work with doctors and sales reps in a lab with little baby pigs in a room with sixteen tables. The piglets were anesthetized and put up on the tables. A veterinarian was present, keeping them under. When the time came, the vet either woke them up or, if the damage was too severe, gave them a shot that stopped the heart instantly. It seemed very humane and reasonably civilized. Well, this was different.

When Ken and I got to the hospital in Harlem, we went to the room number as directed. It seemed like a storage closet. There was junk everywhere. Behind a door in the back of the room was a real closet. In the closet was a table which pretty much filled the space, on the table was tied a pig. Now, this was no piglet. This was a two hundred pound, bacon, ham, sausage and ribs pig. It was lying on its back spread eagle. Its hooves tied with gauze to the legs of the table. It was intubated and anesthetized. A syringe was attached to a tube attached to a needle in a vein in the pig's left ear and taped to the table beside its head. The scene was really wild. I mean it was totally out, surreal, bizarre. My heart was pounding as I looked around for whoever was responsible for this animal. The room was empty. Ken was much more into this than I. He was all set to just start doing what we came to do but I was not. I did not want to touch that fucking pig, at least until I knew I would not have to deal with it. I actually wanted to run out as fast as I could and get a drink. I was really freaking out, deep down inside. Ken was very cool, a fact that freaked me even more! Ken just went about his testing all businesslike.

Picture the scene. Here on an upper floor of a twenty story hospital was a roomful of junk and in the back of this uninhabited room was a table in a closet on which was restrained an unconscious, two hundred pound pig and here is my co-worker calmly sticking things into its belly. I was seriously thinking Ken was insane, or maybe I was. My mind leapt from where is the person administering the drugs? to, who has the drugs? to, how did they get this pig up here? to, where does this pig live? to, is this real? to, holy shit! I am just outta here no tomorrow style! I asked Ken if he thought we should split. I was suddenly afraid to be seen near this animal. I had the same feeling when I was a kid standing next to a friend who just hit the side of a cop car with a snowball. The closet was so small we were literally belly-to-belly with this pig and I wanted out, immediately. Just then, just as Ken said he was done, the pig started to wake up.

I have no idea what a person would do if they awake and find themselves tied to a table but this pig was not coming out of it in the coolest manner. Its eyes were not open but it was definitely coming to. It began to thrash and writhe on the table. The strips of gauze were very tight and getting tighter. I remember thinking that outside of a glass jar, I had never before seen the bottom of pig’s feet. Now here were four pig’s feet, straining against strips of white gauze bandage. That thought left me as I started thinking how this pig could easily break the strips of gauze holding it’s cloven hooves to the steel table. I began to envision this partially mutilated animal tearing itself loose and demonstrating its strength and anger as it flopped onto the floor in a panic driven rampage through this room and eventually down the hallways of this very large metropolitan hospital. Although I almost laughed out loud as I imagined the reactions of patients and staff suddenly confronted by a large, bleeding, squealing swine as it ran terrified from room to room, I scanned the area for something suitable with which I could kill this pig before it broke free and ran amok. As the pig began emitting a gargling squeal, a man walked into the room. I wanted to hide under the table. The guy had the disheveled appearance of someone who was interrupted from a blowjob. With no introduction of any kind, he shoved his way into the closet with the three of us (Ken, the pig and me), reached across the table and pressed the plunger on the syringe. The pig stopped fussing and, in a few seconds, stopped living.

That guy never introduced himself nor even asked who we were. I mean, if I were keeping a pig tied to a table, I'd want to know who was sticking things into its abdominal cavity. But after dispatching the pig this guy just squeezed out of the closet. By the time Ken gathered his things, the guy was gone. And moments later, so were we, leaving the pig where we found it.

Nice 1

Holy shit, im usually cool under pressure but any animal, let alone a 200 pound one, can do serious damage in a situation like that. Ill admit it id run like hell...