Piggy Paper

I went over to my parent’s house the other day to look for some gold pleather pants from college so that I can wear them on a date tomorrow. But that’s a story for another post. While I was looking for these pants, I came across several boxes of keepsake items ranging from first grade art work to college papers. One paper I came across that struck a memory was one that I wrote first semester in my freshman year of college for a Rhetoric class.

I remembered the assignment was to write about something that we were once ignorant about but came to be wise about after an event or as we got older. I took the topic quite literally and wrote about the first thing that came to my head: Piggies.

Piggies, you ask? Yes, one of my first college papers was about flatulence and how I was raised in a house where we were told to not to say “fart” or “pass gas”, but call this release of air a “piggy.” The thing was, I didn’t know that not all people didn’t commonly refer to this as “piggy” until I was older and started using this word in front of my friends. For instance, “Katie, did your dog make a piggy?” It was always used as a noun instead of a verb. So, I was ignorant about the fact this was a word used solely in the H*g*m*n household and I wised up when I tried using it out on the “streets”…or, in this case, my friend's basement.

I read through this paper and got to the end with the professor’s comments, which said:

Ashley- Although your topic seems quite unexceptional, your story is well-told and nicely illustrated, such that one can visualize your family. You write well, and I’m glad to see you know how to use dialogue to bring the event to life! I especially like your tone; there is a light, humorous quality to it. Perhaps now you could work on the significance some more, and what the experience of learning “piggy” really means for you.

Would you mind reading the part I marked to the class?—RW

I mean, maybe it wasn’t the best topic of choice, but really, how significant can I make this experience? I remember getting this paper handed back to me in class and going, “he wants me to read this out loud?” I read the part he had marked, using the words piggy, fart, and toot all in the same sentence in front of my new classmates. He wanted me to illustrate my use of dialogue in the paper to the class. When I finished reading, there was no response from the class. Just pure silence…not even a chuckle. What happened to the good 'ol potty humor high school kids had? Another kid in the class was asked to read a piece of his paper too. He wrote about a nearly fatal car accident he had when he was 15 and how he was in a coma for five months. When he came out he had to relearn everything…people, memories, how to tie his shoes. His topic was how he had taken life for granted before this accident and how this event gave him a whole new perspective on life. Again, mine was on how I learned that the rest of the world doesn’t call farts-“piggies” and how that was an embarrassing moment for me. I like to think that I have matured since then. Perhaps I have had a few more life experiences that have made more of an impact on me than the day I found out about piggies. Kind of ironic isn’t it? I must have been pretty ignorant then if that was my topic.