A Pig For Fawn

Life sometimes hands us surprises in ways we never anticipate.  I guess that's what a surprise is, something totally unexpected.  This is such a story, something that happened several years ago while we were living in Honduras. 

We were traveling across the country from La Ceiba in the north to Tegucigalpa in the south.  It would be a long trip, so Larry had made up a scavenger hunt pitting the guys against the girls.  One of the items on the list was a dead animal, not terribly uncommon in Honduras.  Well, we were barely out of La Ceiba when Joel sighted a decomposing cow lying on the side of the road.  Excited at the find, he and his dad began to cross that and other items off their list.  On the other team, we girls were doing equally well except for one glaring item.  There were no more dead animals to be found, and Fawn was taking it especially hard.  Fawn always took things hard, especially if they weren't going her way.  She continued to whine for many miles convinced the game was lost.  

At some point we picked up a young American Peace Corps worker needing a ride.  There were six of us already filling the front and back seats, so he climbed into the back of the truck.  The trip was going along smoothly until we came to a tiny community that sat close to the highway.  As we were traveling this particular section of road, I heard a noise.  Suddenly up over the bank came a squealing pig running for his life.  At the moment he crossed the road, the front of our truck hit him square on and he went flying through the air.  I could see faces on both sides of the road peering at the pig and at our truck.  "Keep going, keep going!" shouted the passenger from his perch in the back knowing full well that we would probably pay dearly if we stopped.  Suddenly Fawn jumped up from her seat beside me, pumping her arms up and down in absolute glee. "We've got our dead animal!  We've got our dead animal!"   Never mind that someone had lost their valuable pig or that our bumper was now sporting a nice blood-stained dent.  She was able to put a check mark on her list, and all was well with her world once again.

If we had found a common carcass on the side of the road, we would have been somewhat satisfied but not surprised.  No one ever suspected when we set out that day that we would hit a pig.  Granted, it was unfortunate for the little fellow, but the surprise that we encountered with that unexpected little porker still brings laughter and memories of a trip taken long ago.