Corn Stalker

I threw my little sister in front of a chainsaw-wielding madman yesterday. I heard the rev of the motor somewhere off to my right and saw the wave-like rustle of the corn as he ran towards us. Without hesitation, I snatched Lil' Sis' arm and tossed her closer to the edge of the path while shrieking my lungs out. I closed my eyes, waiting to hear the sound of chain blade meeting flesh.
After a moment, I opened an eye.
Lil' Sis laughed, her shoulders shaking, her face pale and slightly menacing in the moonlight. "Hoo, boy, Hannah," she chuckled. She might have wiped a tear from her eye. "Let's keep going."
She grabbed my elbow and steered me down the path.
I did my level best to stay in the exact middle. I wanted as much room between me and the crazies as I could get. I heard the chain saw moving further away and breathed a sigh of relief.
"I didn't know it was going to be a haunted corn maze," I murmured, softly so as to prevent that guy with the clown mask from getting a lock on our position.
Lil' Sis beamed, her canines lengthening. I blinked rapidly, and her teeth were back to normal.
"Neither did I," she replied, a little too loudly for my sense of security.
I scowled. "I mean, when someone says, 'Let's go to a corn maze', this is not what I--"
BANG!
I screamed and jumped away from the sound. A tall, menacing person in black and an unidentifiable mask loomed out of the darkness. He held a short stick in one hand and banged it against the barrel again. I twitched and Lil' Sis snickered.
"Keep going," she encouraged, her hands pressing into my back. "You have to be in front."
"--why anyone would want to bang on metal barrels is beyond me," I muttered when I remembered how to breathe.
The rest of the haunted portion followed its precedent. A person dressed in frightening apparel would lunge out or bang a barrel or invade my personal space and I would scream while Lil' Sis would laugh. Rinse. Repeat. We made it to the end without losing any body parts, major or otherwise.
"I just come to watch you freak out," Lil' Sis said at one point - which is why I felt fully justified in using her as a human shield.
Too bad she makes such a small one.

If You Hear Me Singing, Just Ignore It

My car is not working (again). Something to do with the fuel pump and cylinders 3 and 4. And so, for those around-the-town errands, I borrow Lil' Sis' car. Not that I miss my car, as one set of wheels is pretty much the same as another, but I fiercely pine for a radio, a cd player, an iPod, or any music-making device that would fend off embarrassment.
I have a habit of singing to myself, often at the top of my lungs, when I am bored, when I wake up in the morning, and when I am sitting in a music-free vehicle. My repertoire includes a vast array of Disney songs, several church hymns, every Christmas carol known to man, and either the chorus or half of more than a few alternative rock songs. Usually, this innocuous habit exhibits itself in front of family or close friends. On rare occasions, it manifests itself in public.
Case in point: It was a warm day, and Lil' Sis' car has no air conditioning. Driving to the store, I had the window down, enjoying the cool air that poured in. I was in a good mood. I had an unexpected day off from work and the time to do whatever I wanted. (That I spent some of that time grocery shopping proves that had I been a hunter-gatherer in prehistoric times, I would put the welfare of my tribe above other activities, such as re-watching Lord of the Rings.) I meandered through Smith's Food and Drug, humming softly. I filled my cart - the one with the squeaky wheel that has my name written all over it - and headed to the checkout. I whistled "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Da" as I loaded the groceries into the back seat of the car. The whistling morphed into sort of half humming, half singing as I slid into the front seat. I clipped my seat belt, rolled down the window, and belted out the chorus.

"Zip-a-dee-doo-da! Zip-a-dee-ay! My, oh, my, what a wonderful day!" I backed out of the parking space and shifted into drive. "Plenty of sunshine, going my way! It's a jolly holiday with Mary!"

I shifted from Song of the South to Mary Poppins as smoothly as the car. I pulled out onto the street, swaying slightly from side to side, catching a glimpse of my face in the rear-view mirror. I looked happy and I'm sure I sounded happier.

I pulled to a stop at the red light and continued singing. "When the day is gray and ordinary, Mary makes the sun shine bright! Oooohhh! It's a jolly holiday with Mary! No wonder that it's Mary that we . . ."

I trailed off as I became aware of slow, exaggerated clapping. I glanced to my left and froze like my jolly holiday had been cut short by a shark attack.

A man in a blue Ford Explorer grinned openly. He cupped his hands around his mouth. "Sing it, baby! Sing it loud!"

I know I blushed because I felt like I had been plunged face-first into a steam bath.

"Sing it!" He kept shouting. "Sing it like you love it!"

"I do love it," I muttered and rolled up the window.
I pretended to fiddle with the radio. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the man continue to clap. I faced forward, determined to ignore unappreciative audiences everywhere, and continued singing.
The windows of a geo metro are not soundproof. I discovered this as a piercing whistle all but fractured the glass. I glanced sideways as Mr. Ford Explorer let loose another wolf-whistle. I sort of scrunched down in my seat, glaring at the traffic light, willing the red light to switch to green.
"I love Mary Poppins!" the guy shouted.
I cranked down the window. "So do I!" I yelled.
Unfortunately, the light changed and screaming at the back of someone's car doesn't have quite the same effect. The car behind me leaned on the horn and I pressed on the gas pedal, mood ruined. I muttered for about half a block before Walt Disney found me again - this time in the form of The Lion King.
"Oh, I just can't wait to be king!" I crowed, deciding to not care if the pedestrians objected.
We're getting a radio put in this weekend.

The Swine that Flew

When I was six years old, I was chased by a pig. It started out innocently enough - just your run-of-the-mill kindergarten field trip to a working farm. Fifteen kids huddled around the teacher and a large, sweaty man in overalls as they pointed out the cows, supervised the petting of the goat, and distributed small kernels of corn to feed the chickens. Growing up in rural Utah, I wasn't exactly awestruck by all the sights and smells. I remember exploring the barn and chicken coop with the fearless confidence of one who regularly stuck her hand through an electric fence to pet horses. Nothing, I thought, could be worse than brushing against the electric wire.
I was wrong.
I wonder at the reasoning behind letting five and six year old children eat sack lunches in the vicinity of pushy, obnoxious barnyard animals. And yet, that is exactly what we did. We spread out on hay bales, small step ladders, and the non-working tractor, and ate our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, apples, and twinkies. I say ate, but we mostly fed our lunch to the various animals crowding us. I remember very carefully breaking my sandwich into four pieces. One for me, one for the goose, one for the goat, and one for the little, pink piglet. You can't look at a baby pig and not want to hold it. The pale, wrinkled snout snuffed at my purple corduroy pants. The heavily lashed eyes looked like black marbles. I held out my apple and touched it's surprisingly soft ears as it munched away. I gingerly slipped two hands under its belly and lifted.
Did you know that pigs scream? Well, now you know.
The unearthly shriek pierced my ears and I immediately dropped the pig. It took off toward a small shed next to the barn. I gave chase. I remember hearing shouts of "Catch the pig!" and suddenly being surrounded by a herd of laughing children. It was my pig. I was going to catch it. I pinned my eyes on the curly pink tail and pumped my arms and legs, willing myself to run like the wind. Alas, the piglet was faster. So was that boy with the brown hair. He stopped outside the shed and peeked around the corner.
"Shhh!" He held a finger up to his lips.
Five kids came to a crashing stop.
"The mommy's in there," he whispered.
We craned our necks to catch a glimpse of mommy pig. It was bigger than a pony. Bigger than a cow. She was as big as a house. A huge, hulking beast, with pink skin and hooves the size of my desk at school. She rooted around in a trough of food scraps while four or five piglets scampered around her feet. Some sort of cage surrounded the pigs - dull red bars that seemed almost black against the paleness of the pigs' flesh. The little pig we had been chasing bolted under the bottom bar, squealing as it slid against the far wall. Mommy pig whirled around, snorting. What looked like half a head of cabbage slid out of her mouth and plopped to the floor. All of us squealed (rather like piglets) and shrank back. She turned her head and lowered it to the food trough again.
"It's okay," I whispered, "she can't get out." I pointed to the bars corralling her against one corner of the wall.
Brown haired boy and I inched forward, both of us determined to catch a pig. We eyed each other and then, at the same time, slipped our hands under the bar. I don't know whose piglet squealed first, mine or his, but we both fell backwards as mommy pig slammed against the bars. To my everlasting horror, the bars fell to the ground and mommy pig barreled out of her pen.
I remember blurs of color as I picked myself up and ran. Brown, blue, yellow, and green melded into a finger-paint landscape as I ran out of the door. I remember screaming and hearing the other children scream. The ground trembled and I could hear snorting and heavy breathing behind me. I risked a glance over my shoulder. The huge porcine mass of filled my vision, her hooves tearing up the ground, her head lowered, eyes pinned on me. She was going too fast to be simply running. She had wings. She flew. I ran faster, determined not to be trampled to death by a pig at age 6.
I remember tripping, falling to my hands and knees, and someone landing on my back. When I looked up, the giant farmer had effectively clipped the pig's wings with a forward tackle. He led her back into the shed, screaming something that I couldn't hear with all the noise I was making.
I made it home in one piece after a lecture from our teacher. And, somehow, managed to avoid a lifetime of grappling with swinophobia.
And yet, last month at the state fair, when I saw a sleeping mommy pig surrounded by adorable sleeping piglets, I felt a prickling between my shoulder blades. My sense of unease further escalated when I saw a woman reach her hand between the bars, grasp the back leg of a little pig, and give it a little jiggle.
"Wake up, little piggy," she said.
I took a step back and pulled out the camera, determined to document any mishap that was to follow.
"I want to pet the baby," my niece said, slipping closer to the bars.
"Or," I said brightly, envisioning terror and mayhem in all of it's swine-like glory, "we could go for another carnival ride!"
Lil' Sis snatched the niece's hand and whirled around. There may have been a smirk on her face, but I'm not sure. I was too busy backing away slowly from the pen, shaking my head in wonder at the fascinated audience. Let them be, people. Let sleeping pigs lie.