The ten stupid things a kid will do - Number 2, Bullfighting 101: How to tick off the big mean boar.

Attention Readers: For those people who believe swine are cute and adorable like in the book "Charlotte’s Web" or in the movie "Babe," this story is not for you.

Four pinkish streaks. Then four more dart hoofed feet through the lower pasture as curly tails and bouncy bodies knocked into each other and into the few cows trying to chew their cud. In tiny porcine squeals whenever the cows snorted in annoyance at the playful creatures, the piglets were out in force on the summer day. It was no surprise. Their cement enclosure where their mamas rested had wood slats for pen doors with the openings wide enough for little piggy bodies to squeeze through.

Yet not on one hot day. With the temperatures nearing volcano eruptions, we had thrown the pen doors wide. At stately trots, the four mamas had made their way outside and around toward the shadowed side of the barn so they could wallow in the cool depths of their mud hole. Sitting in the middle of the hole was the only male in the entire bunch, as he oversaw his harem of portly women who had no shame in showing off their bare skin or engage in sultry mudwrestling.

When evening shadows fell along with the heat of the day, all the farm animals would make their way into the barn, with the help of the border collie who urged them to seek hay beds. The cows, piglets, and porky moms would hurry inside at the curfew, but not the boar. Always wanting his tricks out working at night, the piggy pimp would chase the frightened dog away with the threats of evoking serious hoof damage on the barking police officer. So it was left to the human personnel to chase the felon down and lock him away. It was no mean feat. My brother and I were just as scared of this 150lb hog who had a mean temper.

Our attempts of intimidation never worked, whether we wielded brooms or pitchforks. When a person sees that much pink tonnage barreling toward them, it was easier for us to drop weapons and leap over safety barricades as we laid panting in the tall grass. On the other side of the electrified fence, the boar stomped and grunted at our cowardly retreat, his ears tuned on us like homing radar ready to seek and destroy if we thought about returning to the pasture. With our bullying attempt a complete failure, the only option left was to use someone as bait with the pig felon giving chase like a drug deal gone bad.

I always volunteered my big brother to this civic duty.

So he sneaked onto the neighbor’s property and into the upper field as I waved arms and shouted and shook my rump at the irritated pig to keep the animal’s attention focused on me. Completely enraged, the boar would charge into the fence where the ZZZZT of electrical current sent it scurrying away even more agitated that it couldn’t reach me. Then my brother appeared by the open barn door, giving a whistle.

The boar turned around. Hot steam leaked from its open mouth. Eyes glowed with an unholy fire. Hooves scraped at the ground with its head down. If the pig could grow horns, two hellish points would sprout out in seconds ready to impale the foolish matador whose shirt flapped like a red cape.

The boar made its mad dash through the field as I would follow at a safe distance. My brother scrambled into the barn and into the empty pen still taunting the creature. Once the pig barreled into the pen, my brother would jump over the cement block wall into a next enclosure as I would shut the boar’s pen door.

We had won. It was time for the humans to retire to our own home now. But tell that to my brother, who wasn’t finished gloating his victory at the big mean pig.

My oh-so-wise big brother would jump back into the pen shaking his own butt at the outraged boar. Then my brother would again jump for freedom as the pig leaped forward. Once. Twice. Three times. It was the fourth time when my brother’s feet slipped on the hay.

CRUNCH!

That noise was the pig . . . sinking teeth into the back of my brother’s leg . . . into the fleshy part behind the knee . . . breaking open skin.

AHHHHH!

That was my brother’s scream in pain . . . not realizing pigs could bite down that hard . . . as karma or the fates or a higher power punished him for gloating.

Yeah. It was a stupid, stupid, very stupid thing for my brother to do. This was what the emergency doctor claimed as he took a long needle and pushed it into the white, puffy, infection as the medicine man administered the antibiotics.

After that, we never used our bodies to chase the pig again. We used our John Deere tractor to coax the pig into submission.

But the big mean boar’s reign of terror would continue . . .