We have a family story that happened when I was a kid and has been told on numerous occasions since. It is one of those things that you have to scratch your head and wonder…

I grew up in the mountains of Boone, NC. One time when I was about three years old, my parents decided that we should get some pigs. Now, if you knew my parents you would think this statement was funny, but let me paint the picture. My parents were hippies. Not just the trendy hippies that liked to wear cool clothes, but true blue hippies. Dad had a beard down to his belly and hair down his back. Mom had long flowy hair, the dresses to go with it and never a thing on her feet. They were nature lovers and always had lots of animals around. So, to get some animals that would eventually feed us is funny to me now (let’s just say it was the first and last time that they went this route).

My parents got the pigs and named them..get this…Link and Patty. Of course we had no idea that their names were a sign of their demise to come. My brother and I would feed the pigs and talk to the pigs and play with the pigs. We liked the pigs.

One day the pigs had gotten rather large and my dad decided it was time to butcher them. I should say here that my dad had never butchered anything in his life. Mom should have seen the problems from a mile away, but being the supportive wife she is, she kept quiet. So, dad kills the pigs (they never divulged how that happened) and he brought them to the butcher to prepare for our consumption. The butcher politely told my dad that he would need to shave the pigs before he could do anything with them. So, dad goes to the store and buys as many disposable Bic razors he can find..that’s right….the cheap disposable Bic razors that we cut our faces and legs with all the time. How he was planning on shaving a pig we will never know.

Dad lathers up the pigs with shaving cream (and a lot of shaving cream at that) and goes about shaving the dead pigs and making a huge mess in the process. He brings the pigs back to the butcher. The butcher looks at these maimed pigs, with bloody bare spots all over them, shakes his head and proceeds to close the shop so that he can give my dad some one on one attention. The butcher finally got it all straightened out and prepared the meat. Dad proudly brought it home and gave it to my mom to cook. That night as we were sitting at dinner, my brother asks:

“Daddy, what happened to Link and Patty?”

Dad said (with a touch of pride):

“You’re eating them.”

Of course my mom was mortified. It didn’t really effect Nate and I too much. We thought it was kinda cool.

I loved the responses we got from the Cooking Blunder story..any funny stories you can share from growing up?

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