Hogwash

Miniapple visited a small petting farm up in Hugo, Minnesota today. It was a lacking field trip. The kids, the adults, both didn't seem to have much fun. Waste of time. For one thing it was too far away. The kids were getting restless on the school bus. Plus, one kid had the foreboding gray face of nausea on the way back. I placed a garbage bag inside her shirt, acting like a net for impending spew. Luckily, she kept it in.

The thing that made the trip noteworthy happened after we sent the kids through the pig pen. One farmer had been taking us through, and another farmer ran up to him.

"You lettin' them kiss the pigs?"

Tour guide: "Hmm? Yeah, they're kissing 'em. Huggin' 'em. Havin' a good time."

Frenzied Farmer: "Well, there's that sickness goin' around."

Tour guide: "Yeah. Yeah, there's that. We're not s'posed to let 'em kiss the piglets."

(He said this as a statement rather than a question. Really odd, as if he knew all along but chose to give my students the swine epidemic. He was obviously playing cool, trying to be the good, well composed host.)

Frenzied Farmer (looking at me): "You've heard of the sickness, right?"

Me: "Oh yeah, the swine flu. N1 something or other."

Frenzied Farmer: "You don't let them kiss the pigs now."

Me: "I was unaware of any kissing."

Frenzied Farmer: "Cuz it's not the pigs you should be afraid of. It's the kids. The kids are now the ones giving it to the pigs, the pigs spread it to more people. There was a farm up in Canada where a one and a half year old kissed the nose of a pig. Gave the swine flu to the poor little piggy."

Here's the kid he was referring to:
I'm pretty sure this kid did NOT have the swine flu. It's just a joke. Sadly, a toddler DID die of swine flu, but it was in Texas, not Canada. I just think it's funny that no one knew what the hell they were talking about or really what they were actually doing on the farm.

I wanted to tell him about the captions on the pic, but thought he wouldn't get it. This was a little too "Beverly Hillbillies" for me. Plus, I thought he might get into some apocalypse related hogwash, thinking that that kid actually did kill us all.

The Beatles -- "Piggies"