Concerning an Outhouse and a Pig

I went to the countryside a couple weeks ago. As always, it provided some near-death interesting experiences, one of which involved a pig—which in and of itself is worthy of note in Mongolia. I haven’t always gotten along well with pigs. I had a particularly scaring experience at the county fair when I was little, in which a large mama pig decided that she should have the french fries I was nibbling on. Granted, she was in a pen, and I was outside the pen, but you don’t really think about that when you are two years-old and something 10X your size lunges at you! Oh, right, the countryside… when you are in the countryside there are generally only two places to relieve yourself—either in the great wide open, or in the very occasional outhouse. The area we were driving through was amazingly flat so I ignored my bladder until we stopped at a home possessing an “outhouse”; it was “out” alright, but there was no “house” about it! It was quite the sight to behold; a roofless, doorless, and nearly floorless outhouse being held upright by two wires, attached to opposite corners, that were staked into the ground. It must be quite exciting to use at night since not only were there very large gaps between the floorboards, but there was there a hole in front of it and one behind it! As I was using this “outhouse” I heard snuffling and snorting that was getting closer and closer. At the same time, my coworker was beginning to sound panicked, “A pig, a pig! Oh! Oh! It’s coming closer, Oh! The pig is coming!” We had seen the pig on our way to the outhouse, but it had been a ways away. I was quite uneager to meet the pig at eyelevel while balancing on planks in a rather unstable structure. I exited just as the pig’s snout poked around the side. I’m sure that my coworker has never seen someone leap out of an outhouse with quite so much speed or momentum! The pig, having done its work by unsettling the foreigner, ambled back to the patch of grass it had been rooting around in before.