Pigs in the house

     It was the end of a long day, I'd just walked out the door of the clinic and was headed for home.  I was tired, and cold, and ready for the dinner I knew my wife had waiting for me.  Of course that's when the phone rang.  A lady had a young pig in labor, and it was having trouble.
     I'd never been to this place before, they were the clients of another veterinarian.  But, he'd been trying unsuccessfully to pass a kidney stone for the last four days, so I was covering for him.
     The "farm" was thirty minutes in the wrong direction from home.  It sat directly off a busy road, but had seen far better days.  The first thing I noticed was that there was no barn, and I could see no pens with pigs anywhere in sight.
So I knocked on the door.  The lady that answered invited me in, saying "Come on in, the pig is in here."  As a large animal veterinarian, I'm often standing on the backside of animals, so you never know what I may have recently stepped in.  I try to keep my boots clean, but it's usually a losing battle.  With this thought in mind I lean over to remove my boots before entering.  Just then a 20 pound piglet races through my legs and out the door.  Three small children follow it in hot pursuit, two under my legs and one squeezing between the door jam and I.  The mother yelling at them, "Get that pig back in the house before it gets run over on the road."
     It is then that I realize, they have pigs in the house.  So I leave my boots on and follow the lady inside.  She directs me to a gilt penned behind the sofa wedged in the corner of the living room.
     A quick exam makes it clear that a C-section will be needed to deliver these babies.  By now I've realized that if these people lose this pig, it will be a serious financial loss to this family, and that they could really use as many live piglets as we can get.  No pressure.
     I anesthetize the gilt, and prep her for surgery.  The light in the corner is poor, so I have them holding a flashlight for me.  Somehow this job fell to a five year old boy, leaning over the back of the couch.  With each piglet I pull from the uterus the boy squeals with delight, and jumps wildly up and down on the sofa, sending the light bouncing off the walls in a spectacular light show, but leaving my surgical field in virtual darkness.
     As I'm cleaning up to leave.  There are now six little piglets nursing from the mother behind the couch.  The little boy is still jumping on the sofa,  "The spotted one is mine!  I'm going to name him Bacon!"
     Walking through the door pf my own home, my own five year old throws his arms around me.  "Dad, guess what.  Mom fixed bacon for dinner! Come have some bacon!"