Pig Mom - Ch. 3 (Final) (November 2024)

I started to think I overstayed my welcome. Chris was not happy at all. We hung out in the basement for the rest of that hour. With the editing done and the video ready for our presentation, there wasn’t anything to do except hang out. Chris though returned to his computer to log onto play Counter Strike and ignored me.

 My hormones raged though, pushing me to do anything to be around Janet. I mean, getting to have dinner with her? Something HAD to have happened. Even a little demure slip would have made me happy.

            I sat there watching him play, and then said, “I saw you have ping pong, wanna play?’

            “Hm,” was all he said.

            “Yeah, actually I’m not good at it. But. The air hockey thing is cool.”

            After a few minutes, he sighed deeply and we played a few games before jumping to foosball. He was extremely cold towards me and acted like he was the most bummed out person in the entire world. I wanted to straight up ask him why but feared that he was upset at me.

            When dinner was ready, I got to see the dining table in all its glory. Janet had actually set the table herself. I already found it strange watching her do work around the house. She smiled graciously at me once I sat down. I smiled back. Chris sat next to me and glanced at her, then to me.

            “You’ll get a taste of George’s famous lasagna,” she chimed, sitting directly across from me. She had taken a Yuengling from the fridge and drank it straight from the bottle.

            Oh boy. I don’t know if I can handle this.

            On the table were several more pig-themed items, such as pig-shaped candle lights and pig-shaped napkin holders. I decided to bring it up in hopes of hearing a good story.

            “I…noticed a theme in your house by now,” I began. I tapped the napkin holder. “Pigs?”

            George had entered and set the tray full of lasagna. He laughed and said, “Ah yeah. That’s my Janet. Little piggy.”

            The two of them exchanged doe-eyes and cooed at each other. It was a bit awkward. Actually, very awkward. Chris rolled his eyes and began serving himself lasagna.

            Neither George nor Janet elaborated, since they got distracted with serving the side dishes. I took a piece of bread and said, “So…what about the pig?”

            Chris looked to me and said, “Don’t—” but was cut off by his mom.

            “WELL, George and I met at a bar. This was back in the day when people actually still met at bars. Not like what they do now with the apps. I was with my girlfriends celebrating a birthday party when I had a liiiitle too much to drink and…well…I burped out loud. I’m sure you remember the other day.” She giggled deviously.

            George continued the story. “I was so taken aback that it was from her. I had to make sure. So I went up to her and said, ‘Holy cow, that was you?’ And she said yes. I honestly found it mighty impressive. So we kept talking and decided to go on a date. I was absolutely astounded that this woman was not afraid to burp on the first date. Can you believe that?”

            Janet raised her arms in defense. “I just always do it! Doesn’t matter where, doesn’t matter when. It’s part habit, part belief that you just gotta get all that bad air out! What’s the point in living if you can’t just do it? But…I also may have done it on purpose a couple times to see if he would run away or not.”

            George smiled. “Well, I didn’t. And here we are.”

            “And here we are,” she said affirmatively.

            “But anyway,” George said. “that’s where the pig thing comes from. I kept calling her that and it became a thing. She also snorts when she laughs so—it was perfect. She’s a pig in human form!”

            And just like that, as Janet was laughing, she accidentally let out a burp. This made her and George laugh even louder. Janet snorted and went red with laughter. When they finally stopped, they wiped tears from their eyes and George said, “Yup. That’s my wife.”

            I looked at him lopsided for a moment, wondering if…you know…he had it. The fetish. A part of him seemed rather oblivious. I had never met a nicer man who came off as completely harmless, yet somehow fatherly with an undertone of sternness whenever Chris was being a quiet angsty teenager. I was the only one between the two of us leading the conversation talking about our class and our project and what we filmed.

            “Yeah,” George said. “Chris here has all that equipment because he wanted to do a podcast thing. Right, Chris?”

            Chris mumbled as he stabbed his lasagna.

            “What was that?” George said. “Speak up.”

            I myself started to get irritated at what his problem was. Sure, we were all angsty back then. Some more than others. I don’t really think I was. Not to try to sound all high and mighty but the simple fact was that I was pretty oblivious.

            “It wasn’t a podcast, for the last time,” Chris spat.

            “Well, whatever it was. He has all sorts of stuff down there. Recording equipment, video equipment. Frankly, I wondered if he works for the CIA or FBI sometimes. Kid stays down there for hours doing God knows what.”

            Chris grunted. “Dad. Stop!”

            I felt my face flush a little from secondhand embarrassment. I didn’t want the conversation to go further down this road, so I said, a little nervously, “Where did you get the llamas?”

            Janet had just took a swig of beer and said, “Oh they are LOVELY aren’t they? We got them from Peru.”

            “Like…they just…ship them on a plane or something?”

            “That was quite a story, wasn’t it George? We always knew we wanted a farm but we wanted to do something different. This was before Chris was born. We traveled the world before having him and went to Peru. We saw some baby llamas and they doted on us and I realized we could start a llama farm. We could make our own sweaters! Well, back then things were complicated with livestock on a commercial flight, so…we rented a car and drove all the way back home!”

            “Biggest road trip ever,” George said, mouth full. “Most enlightening experience of our entire lives. You know, you think you kids have it well, but if you drive through Central America…whoowee, you’d never complain ever again.”

            “But are those the same llamas then?” I asked.

            “Oh no,” Janet said, “of course not. We…you know…had the ones we took mate and then things picked up from there.”

            George rambled on. “Had to go through so much paperwork because you know – America. But it was worth it in the end. I’ll never forget that road trip. Best time of our lives.”

            “So much good food down there.”

            George cackled. “There sure was.” He jerked a thumb at her. “Never get on a long road trip with this woman. I’ll tell ya. She’ll stink up the car in minutes.”

            The two of them laughed but Chris sighed with exasperation. I shifted in my seat nervously. “Cool. That’s very cool. Uhhhh. So….” I failed to come up with another topic of conversation before Janet said, still laughing, “Do you remember when I had those…what are they called…chorizos from that street vendor?”

            “Oh my GOD, you wouldn’t stop FARTING.”

            They laughed so hard they needed a moment to regain their breath. Then the unthinkable happened – Janet farted out loud. It wasn’t as amazing as the first one I witnessed but it was very much a loud audible PRRRRP!

            This caused them to reel back with even louder laughing.

            Chris banged a fist on the table and said, “Dammit, mom! Say excuse me!”

            George and Janet immediately stopped laughing, though their faces were still red. Janet said, “Chris, your friend is over.”

            But Chris ignored the fact that this became the most awkward dinner in the world for me and stood up. He cried, “You’re always SO FUCKING GROSS. You NEVER excuse yourself! For the love of GOD just STOP!”

            He threw his napkin down, took his plate, and went downstairs.

            A few seconds later, we heard the door to his reading room shut.

            George and Janet looked at each other with concern, then to me. I just sat there with the biggest grimace on my face and drew a blank on where to go from here.

            “Sorry about our son,” Janet said. “He can be a little…”

            “A little bitch is what he is,” George muttered.

            “Stop it. You don’t mean that.”

            George said, “He’s so stuck up about manners! He can’t loosen up and have a good time! I have NO idea where he gets that from, because it’s definitely not from us. It’s the stupid computer. The Twitter and the Instagram.”

            “He’s…nice at school,” I said slowly. I actually didn’t know if he was nice at school. Chris hardly acquainted himself with anyone. I had no idea who he talked to outside of our class, if anyone else at all.

            Janet sighed. She said I could finish eating but that Chris was probably upset. I gladly took the hint and had no problem leaving early.

#

            We got an A on our project, which really sat well with me throughout the year. Our teacher really liked the dialogue, the direction, and the rest of the class laughed too. During our video presentation, Chris was the only one not reacting at all. He sat with his head low doodling in his notebook.

            When class was dismissed, I went to Chris and said, “Hey, so it looks like we did a good job, yeah?” But he completely ignored me and left for his next class. I wasn’t sure how to approach Chris after that. Jose didn’t really care and had other friends he hung out with.

             Next thing I know, well, it was summer, and then sophomore year started.

            I had my new English class with Chris again. He was his usual self – dressed haphazardly with his tie loose and shirt untucked. He really didn’t seem to hang out with anyone else. The most we ever talked after that was when our teacher was late and we all goofed off and told some jokes in front of the class.

            Sometime in the middle of sophomore year, Chris stopped coming to class.

            I asked Jose if he knew anything about it but he didn’t.

            I was determined to find out what was up with this guy, partly because I was determined to find an excuse to hang out and see his mom again, as fucked up as that sounds. But hey, we were teenagers.

            I asked over a dozen people until I finally ran into someone who knew him – this nerdy kid named Michael.

            You could say Michael was on the lowest tier of popularity. People didn’t notice him much and he didn’t really interact with people unless they knew stuff like Magic: The Gathering or Gundam. He was small, chubby, zit-faced, and wore glasses. A very classic depiction of the type of nerd you would think of.

            When I asked him if he knew what happened to Chris Harrison, he pushed his glasses up his nose and looked concerned. He said, “Ooo, that kid is a mess. He dropped out. Went to public school.”

            “Dropped out? Why?’

            “I hung out with him once. It was really awkward.”

            “It was the thing with his mom, right?’

            Michael gave me a look. “What? No. What are YOU talking about?”

            Oh. Interesting. I retracted my statement and urged him to tell me.

            “He watched Gundam so we talked about it. I hung out at his place and we watched anime. Then he showed me a cartoon he recorded from the TV. Some Sabrina the Teenage Witch episode. She burps or whatever in an episode. He was really into it and then asked me what I though about it. I told him that I typically watched anime, not American cartoons. But he said no, what did I think about the burping? And I started to get the sense he was into that kind of thing, because he had other recordings of cartoons like that.” Michael grimaced as he went on. “Cartoons…farting and burping and stuff…being bloated. And when I said no, I could tell things got awkward fast. We stopped hanging out. But I knew he wasn’t doing well in school. He kept recording stuff from the TV. So much stuff. All about…those kinds of cartoons. It was really weird. It’s like he just sits in his basement and doesn’t do anything else. Doesn’t do his work. Nothing. He told me once he couldn’t keep up with classes here and would probably drop out.”

            As Michael was telling me all of this, the realization gradually hit me like a ton of bricks. Like imagine the camera zooming in on my face with a fish lens as I frown and go, “Ohhhhhhh shhhhhiiiit.”

            Michael raised a brow. “What? What is it?”

            “Ohhhh. Uhhhh. Never mind. I think that’s all I needed to know. Thanks.”

            With a heavy sigh, I digested everything, sat on it, thought about it.

            Chris was into the same things I was, except he had the unfortunate situation of having a mother who did it all the time. That was the most awkward situation I could ever imagine for someone with the fetish. I thanked God my own mother didn’t do that. I never thought about it and never wanted to think about it. But I also wondered where he had gotten it from, his dad? Or was it his own mother who gave him the fetish subconsciously? The conundrum was a weird one, a classic nature vs. nurture.

            I didn’t obsess over Janet anymore. I figured if it had made someone really frustrated like that, I could easily let it go. I can’t help but wonder though what they are up to these days, and the kind of marriage she and George have.

This story might be way more developed later, but this was a test run. So to be continued maybe? At any rate, this version ends here!