Quicksand at the Pig Farm

One Sunday, when I was around twelve years old, my parents took us to visit some good friends of theirs who owned and operated a pig farm in the rural part of Greater Vancouver. Our two mothers went to high school together so this friendship spanned many decades. They might not see each other regularly but whenever they did, it’s as if time stood still. They were good friends of ours and my father sometimes even lent a helping hand at the farm whenever they needed extra hands. I remember once when my father returned from working at the farm and swore off pork for life, but that is another story. My grandmother’s health was still good back then and we made a family outing of it that day. Actually, what happened that day made time stand still for me so I can forever recall that warm Sunday morning…

These friends have three children close in age to my sister and me. But for some reason they always preferred my sister’s company to mine whenever our families got together so naturally that morning I found myself among the adults, visiting the livestock and walking along the canals surrounding the farm. After a while, I got bored and asked if my grandmother wanted to accompany me to see what the other children were up to. She, being of the sheltered and easily frightened type, said no, because she was afraid of being attacked by wild dogs. Wild dogs there? I ask you! For someone who experienced and witnessed the brutal and inhumane Japanese invasion of China, World War II, and then fled the country to Taiwan in 1949, my grandmother is a brave person but she remained scared of silly things, like imaginary dogs.

So I risked meeting wild dogs and went off on my own and could see and hear where the children were playing far in the distance. I decided to take the most direct route and not use the marked paths. As I walked further, the ground cover started to look different and I noticed there were cracks here and there as well as weeds shooting up in patches. But no bells rang in my young and naïve mind. Then suddenly as I took another step forward, my legs sank down and I was in a kneeling position. There was no solid ground on which to stand as my feet couldn’t find nor touch the bottom. What the? I sat there crouched in that awful position and could feel myself sinking ever so slowly. Whenever I moved, my calves would glide underneath and feel the mushy texture. It felt like I was floating there but it was definitely denser than water. I remember that I actually thought this was it: I am going to sink and be buried in this quicksand. I behaved amazingly calm for someone whose life was about to end and I didn’t even cry. I guess I was shocked by this unexpected predicament.

As I sat there waiting for my doom I saw my father’s party emerging in the distance. This was no time to give in to Fate. If I wanted to stay alive I needed them to see me, now. I yelled like a banshee with all my might and I can still picture my father’s frightened face as he sprinted towards me. He is an extremely protective father and seeing his child in mortal danger was the worst thing that could happen to him. As soon as I saw them coming I knew I wasn’t going to die that day. They managed to drag me out without falling in themselves and whisked me quickly to the shower.

Strangely enough, while I was stuck, I didn’t smell anything unpleasant. I just assumed I was in quicksand. But the hot steam of the shower quickly cleared my nostrils and when I smelled the stench, it dawned on me what just happened. My sister and the other children thought it was hilarious that I fell into the pig manure. She didn’t even stop to think that if I had perished, she would no longer have a sister to play with. Children can be so cruel.

Well, my parents’ friends couldn’t stop apologizing and regretted not fencing off the area. They never even dreamed that someone would accidentally walk onto/into their smelly ‘landfill’. Years later when I saw them at my wedding, they even asked if I was the one who fell into their ‘piggy-do’ years ago. Of course it would be funny fifteen years later, and to bring it up at my wedding was even better! It was definitely one of those ‘we’ll laugh about it in a few years’ kinds of incidents.

I still wonder why those children didn’t like to play with me. Maybe they thought I was an idiot when I kept making a big deal about their dog upon our arrival that morning. Being a city child with no pets (and no common sense it turned out), I noticed a ‘ball’ clinging to the dog’s hind leg as he walked around and I alerted everyone who would listen that the dog had a ball of poop stuck to him. No matter what the dog did, it still clung on. What got me excited and curious was that no one seemed to be concerned or surprised. It totally perplexed me that I was the only person who thought it odd. Shouldn’t someone help the dog by taking it off? What if the dog brought it into the house? Yuck!

It took a few more years for me to learn about the birds and the bees. Since we never really had any pets at home, I wasn’t able to learn about the different sexes by observing domestic pets, unless you include parakeets but even I know that birds don’t have obvious signs of genitalia. Of course, I was terrified of our pet parakeet so it wouldn’t have done me any good even if they did since I was afraid to approach it. I don’t recall the time when I put two and two together about that dog but when I did, I probably blushed and then howled with laughter. I can still remember that traumatic day vividly and I can go over in my head how silly I probably was going on about that dog. I guess my parents were too embarrassed to enlighten me back then. I bet even my sister knew, somehow.

Shortly after that incident, my parents invited these friends over for dinner. While the kids were playing in my sister’s room (not mine, for reasons previously mentioned), I noticed that unmistakable piggy smell. I was embarrassed for them. After they left, I tactfully asked my sister if she noticed the smell too. It was awful how these kids were infused with the odor of the farm and didn’t even realize it. I guess if you are used to something, you don’t notice it but other people definitely do. How embarrassing.

“No, you silly girl,” my sister replied. “ The elder boy had on a leather jacket. It was his jacket!”