The piglets are coming! The piglets are coming!

Not a lot of people know this... but in the American revolution, gunpowder was in short supply. The British needed a new strategy to put down the revolt. They took to breeding explosive pigs. This was done simply by creating a cannon ball/pig hybrid and then cross breeding until the offspring looked like a cannonball with a snout and 4 legs. The British would then train the pigs to attack anyone wearing plain clothing. (This, in fact, is the reason why British soldiers throughout the revolutionary war wore only bright red clothing. The pigs were trained to avoid anyone wearing bright red. British intellegence had figured that the war would be fought primarily with explosive pigs, and they did not account for the fact that the soldiers were good targets for American snipers.) But, as is often the case, the story of Paul Revere has been twisted by the liberals into a story of victory over the British, when in fact, it was a story of bitter defeat. that fateful night, Paul was waiting for the signal from the lighthouse (1 lantern lit meant no pigs, 2 lanterns lit meant pigs) and he spotted 2 lanterns. Immediately, he stoked his horse, and tore through the cold Massachusetts night screaming "The piglets are coming! The piglets are coming!" Unfortunately for Paul, the pigs were already swimming across the bay towards the town. As he was riding, he turned back to see half a dozen towns engulfed in flames from the fatal explosive pigs. It was a night of bitter defeat for the American forces.

"Father! Father! The piglets are coming! The piglets are coming!"

"Oh, no. Not again. Quick boy, fetch my gun! Go!" he instructed his son as he hastily threw the napkin down over his plate. "Why do they always come at night?" he wondered.

No sooner had the boy brought him his weapon when he heard them at the door.

Knock. Knock.

"Coming!" he said as he quickly scanned the contents of his tiny shack. Everything seemed to be in order--

Knock! Knock!

"Coming!" he called out again as he went to open the door.

KNOCK! KNOCK!

"Coming!" he said for a third time as he opened the door to greet his visitors. "Good eve--" began the man until he saw what lay before him. Good Lord, he thought, there must be three score or more of them as he looked out into the dead-eyed stare of pork.

"Good evening, Farmer John." spoke the pig in the clipped guttural tones of his kind.

"Good evening, sir." responded the man, "You honour me with your presence."

"Do you always greet your honoured guests in this manner?" said the pig as he gestured towards the weapon in Farmer John's hands.

"No, sir. It's just that it's so late. You never know--"

"Do not presume to know what I know!" shouted the pig "Now kindly stowe your weapon!"

"I'd rather not, sir." said John. In the silence that followed the farmer was left to contemplate the full wrath of this pig's porcine rage. One misstep and he would surely be doomed. "It is my right." he asserted weakly.

Very well then," granted the pig "we wish to ask you a few questions. May we come in?"

"Aye." said John as he bade them entrance. However, due to the limited dimensions of his dwelling, only twenty of his pig-oppressors were able to accompany their leader.

"As you know, the King is worried because his son, the heir apparent, has been missing for a fortnight. After an extensive investigation we've discovered that he was last seen in the vicinity of this hovel. Your hovel. What say you, Farmer John?" inquired the pig.

"I know nothing of Prince Reginald, my lord." he said nervously

"Faugh! you ex--" began the pig as he noticed John's eyes stray towards the dinner table before he quickly continued "Oh, I'm sorry! I didn't realize that we were interrupting your supper. How inconsiderate of us." he said as he advanced towards the table.

"Fret not, lord." spoke John. Worried now.

"Nonsense. We can conduct this business at a later date. We will leave you to eat in peace. What are you having for supper, if I may be so bold?"

"Salad, sir." replied the farmer.

"Salad? Excellent!" commented the pig as he scrutinized the table "What a fine meal you've prepared. What kind of salad is this?" as he gestured towards the serving bowl.

"Romaine, lord" answered John.

"I see, and what kind of dressing have you chosen?" asked the pig as he removed the napkin covering Farmer John's plate.

"Oil and vinegar."

"And these? What are these?" inquired the pig dangerously.

"Croutons, sir."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"They don't look like croutons."

"I assure you--"

"LIAR!" exclaimed the pig. "THOSE AREN'T CROUTONS! THEY'RE BACON BITS! YOU HAVE MURDERED AND MUTILATED THE KING'S HEIR AND YOU ARE NOW ATTEMPTING TO INGEST THE EVIDENCE OF YOUR CRIME!"

"Never, lord!"

"LIAR!"

"NO--"

"LIAR! BY THE CLOVEN HOOVES OF OUR HEAVENLY FATHER, I CHARGE THEE WITH THE MURDER OF REGINALD HOGSWORTH THE THIRD!"

"It was self defense!" cried John.

"NO MORE LIES! YOU SHALL PAY FOR THIS CRIME IN KIND! AN EYE FOR AN EYE AND A SNOUT FOR A SNOUT! TAKE THE BOY!" shouted the pig.

"NOOOOOO!" screamed John and faster than thought he wrestled the boy away from his ham-fisted assailants and placed the barrel of his gun against the boy's head. More calmly than he thought was possible he said "I will kill him myself before I allow you to take him!"

The pig considered his options and decided, "So be it."

Every ounce of John's will was focused on his index finger, trying to make it move. It was a simple plan really: Breathe and squeeze. Kill the boy. Charge the swine and die fighting. Except--

"I can't!" cried John as he slumped to the floor and dropped his gun and said "I can't kill my only son!" with tears of shame running uncontrollably down his face.

"Humans." muttered the pig before spitting upon the floor of the hovel.

And they took the boy. The last thing that John saw that evening, before taking his own life, was the gentle bobbing of their curly little tails as they disappeared into the night.

FIN

Funny you should mention this, because a couple months back I was tinkering in my lab with some of those big children's books that has the little thing on the right with buttons you can push to hear sounds.

I dismantled the book (it was Winnie the Pooh, I should note) and scanned the audio from the panel thing. Piglet (now let me say this is all coincidence, I promise) had an extremely different waveform than the other characters and noises, and I was quite interested in the anomaly.

I sketched some quick diagrams of the waveform variations, trying to figure out what had made Piglet's samples sound different from the other. It was a flaw in the circuitry, I found out, and I couldn't understand why the manufacturers (or prototype folk, for that matter) didn't pick up on it.

I flipped back through all the old Pooh story books and such, and watched some old videos of the show. I noticed patterns in Piglet's behavior, and at extremely close perusal of some of the videos I noticed strange patterns of what seemed like random video noise in the backgrounds. I was enthralled. Such a thing to do on a Friday night. Researching an anomaly in a kid's book. Anyways, I got out my video camera and set it up on a tripod pointed at the TV, with a tape of the same video in the camera. I set it up so that the camera played and worked as a camera at the same time.

It was shocking.

There were hundreds, thousands of little Piglets in the background. I had tilted the camera on accident by leaning on it and the video feedback on the edge of the image was astounding. There they were in the background, scurrying about very quickly and making what would seen to be a line of noise to the untrained eye.

I had to check the audio. I set up a(n extremely painful) feedback array with what little stereo parts I had and ran the tape full blast. It hurt, but faintly, in a level of sound that seemed almost under the noise floor, they were screaming. Whether or not they were good or bad screams, I could not tell.

Then, I heard it.

The foreground audio was so loud that it was distorted, but I heard the Piglet on screen say "Coming, Pooh!" or something to that effect. At that point, I realized what I had seen.

I know it may sound weird.

It may even sound bad.

But I swear to you it's the truth.

It was an orgy. The little bastards were fucking. They were cumming left and right.

I laughed a bit, and then went on with what I had been doing.

So, anyway, I was in the chem lab in high school, which was right next to one of the Bio labs. There's always been a nice rivalry between the Chem geniuses and the Bio-loving scoundrels, so we had to be on guard at all times. I had set up a nice contraption which poured NaOH and HCl onto an intruder at the same time; we all know what happens when you combine acids and bases, they blow up. (I learn a lot from the Simpsons!) So, anyway, this particular week was dissection week, and I happened to be the only one in the Chem lab. (I was burning things with the Bunsen burners.) When I hear good ol' Johnny Richardson running from the Bio lab (his parents made him take the class, so we used him as a spy) shouting "The piglets are coming!" I didn't have much supplies with me, but we shut the door, and I looked around. Well, what do you know, I saw some Zinc and Copper on a table and I had an Erlenmyer flask of HCl on my table, so I naturally put the Zinc in the HCl, covered it with a stopper that had a tube going through it. The reaction in the flask was a nice little redox reaction, Zn (s) + HCl (aq) --> Zn²⁺ (aq) + H₂ (g) + 2 Cl^- (aq) . The nice effect is that when I lit the tube, the hydrogen gas coming out would light. I threw this at the door just as the biologically engineered army of piglets smashed down the door. It blew up and I was suspended for a week.

Name of a miniscule town in Wales. One disgruntled (no, being disgruntled doesn't have anything to do with piglets!) Welshman decided he was fed up with the public services available in his home town of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. So, he moved across the hill, or glen, or whatever pleasant geographical feature it was, and set about typing up his town charter. He had planned to name the town Cyllgglylwwlwlcclgggggggggh. Unfortunately, however, his typewriter was badly damaged by its 500-meter journey. The only keys that worked were the a,c,e,g,h,i,l,m,n,o,p,r,s,t, the shift key, the space bar, and a special exclamation point key that he had installed for writing letters to the editor. The quick-thinking citizen typed, "The piglets are coming!" He thought it looked a little naked all by itself on the page--such a short name for a town, compared to what he had left. Where was the enjoyment of lazy Saturday afternoons spent writing his return address on correspondence? As a compromise between the limits of his typewriter and the pride of having a difficult-to-pronounce address, he decided that the town name should repeat the phrase twice, and the rest was history.

"The piglets are coming! The piglets are coming!"
Those were the last words the Big Bad Wolf ever heard his brother, the Not-So-Bad Wolf say. For the three little pigs had had enough of the Big Bad Wolf's ways. It was time to even the score.

As the three little pigs approached the cottage of the Big Bad Wolf, they squealed in delight for this time it was they who could smell fear, the fear of the wolf!

Finally, the moment the pigs had been waiting for had arrived. After years of careful calculation and planning, they were finally going to get their revenge.

The Big Bad Wolf trembled in anticipation. He had heard the talk around town, he knew the little pigs had not forgotten his evilness. They had been working at the local Walmart, earning money and slowly stockpiling their weapons. It was rumored that they had acquired enough ammunition to destroy all of New York City, yet not until this very moment had the wolf taken them seriously.

He could hear the jingle of the bullets on the pigs' ammo belts with each step they took. The wolf and his brother ran into their cottage and locked the door.

The piglets snorted at the wolves' pathetic attempt at escape. When they reached the cottage the youngest pig yelled, 'Open the door, or I'll aim and I'll shoot til I blow your house up!'. The wolves were so scared they couldn't move an inch. The oldest piggie yelled, 'Open the door, or I'll aim and I'll shoot til I blow your house up!' Yet still the Big Bad Wolf could not move. Finally the third piggie yelled, 'Open the door or I'll blow your mother trucking head off!'

Just as the wolves were about to give up all hope of survival they heard the pigs arguing amongst themselves.
"No, I'm going to shoot him!"
"No, I am!"
"You always get to do everything! I'm doing it!"
Suddenly all three pigs were rolling around the ground, fighting. A shot was fired and when the Big Bad Wolf looked out the window he could not believe his eyes! Standing over the three little pigs was Little Red Riding Hood, with a shotgun.

The three little pigs had not heard her approach. The door to the cottage opened and out strutted the Big Bad Wolf.
"So, you foolish little pigs think you can defeat me, the Big Bad Wolf, eh?" he said. "Well I'm sorry to disappoint you but ever since I ate Red the first time, she's been coming back for more every day, and it looks like you're the ones that are going to end up in hot water this time, little piglets!"

"Not so fast, brother of mine!" snarled Big Bad's brother.
When Big Bad turned to face his brother he saw the evil gleam in his eye.

"You may have eaten her everyday for the last two months, but I do it better, and Red is mine. We're gonna start a farm, with lots of little pigs, and sheep and even some cows!" And with that The Not-So-Bad wolf shot his brother in the chest.

Little Red Riding Hood and The Not-So-Bad Wolf lived happily ever after, and they ate bacon and hameveryday for the next two months.