Hog-Tied

           Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop!

            That’s all any of the pigs at Uncle Sam’s Animal Ranch ever thought about. Even though the pigs made up a small minority of the animals at the ranch, and even though they already consumed a vast majority of the food, they still wanted more. More slop! And nobody wanted more slop more than Peter Pig and Sammy Swine. It made no difference that they had the most slop already. More slop, in fact, than all the other pigs combined. Still they wanted more. More slop!

            “But how can we possibly get more slop?” Sammy Swine asked.

            “I’ve got an idea,” Peter Pig replied. “We’ll have an election!”

            “An election?”

            “Yes, we will have two of our own run against one another and whoever wins will be in charge of all the pigs in the pen.”

            “But which two?” Sammy Swine wanted to know.

            “How about that orange-tinted one? The one they call Braggadocious. Half the pigs seem to really like him. And for his opponent, how about that grandmother pig, Secretary Smiles. She seems to have quite the following.”

            “But Braggadocious is a racist, sexist, megalomaniac,” Sammy Swine argued. “And Secretary Smiles is a crooked, arrogant, liar.”

            “Perfect!” Peter Pig said. “Don’t you see? The more scandals there are—the more outrageous remarks, the more conspiracy theories—the more divided the pigs will become.”

            “But, I still don’t understand,” Sammy Swine said, “how dividing all the pigs is going to get us more slop?”

            “It’s so very simple,” Peter Pig answered. “While all the pigs in the ranch are so focused on the election, we’ll just slip in and steal all their slop. Hell, they won’t even realize it’s missing.”

            “I see! The election is merely a distraction. But one last question—who do we want to win?”

            “That’s the genius of it all,” Peter Pig said. “It doesn’t matter who wins. Because when all is said and done, everybody loses.”

            “Except us!” Sammy Swine smiled.

            “Exactly!” Peter Pig laughed.

            Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop! Slop!