My Master Plan

 

My master plan to keep the wild hogs from tearing up my lawn required me gathering 811 ping pong balls, two large cans of whipped cream (not on sale), and 18 left shoes (no loafers).

It was, I admit, an unorthodox approach.

The ping pong balls were decoys. I'd read somewhere—possibly in a dream—that hogs are deeply confused by small, bouncing objects, especially in large quantities. They’d either think the lawn was cursed or that a swarm of angry albino frogs had taken up residence.

The whipped cream was for the shoes. A generous dollop in each one, strategically placed in a winding trail across the yard, would lead the hogs into a false sense of dessert-driven security. Why left shoes? I don’t know. It just felt wrong to use matching pairs, and besides, all my right shoes were still recovering from last month’s squirrel incident.

As for the execution of the plan, it was flawless—right up until the neighbor’s dachshund got involved.

The dachshund, whose name is either "Pickles" or "General Pickleton the Third" depending on who you ask, launched himself into the whipped cream trail like a torpedo made of spite and sausage. He slipped, skidded, and then became an airborne missile, ricocheting off two lawn gnomes and a decorative birdbath before landing squarely in the middle of the ping pong ball field.

The effect was immediate.

The balls erupted in every direction—an avalanche of hollow plastic chaos—creating what can only be described as a polka-dotted tsunami. The hogs, who had just arrived at the edge of the property with their usual mix of grunt-fueled entitlement and snuffling menace, paused. You could see it in their tiny eyes: calculation, suspicion, a hint of admiration.

Then came the panic.

One hog squealed, another tried to moonwalk, and a third collapsed into a shoe full of whipped cream like a disgraced lounge singer. Within seconds, the whole herd turned tail, tripping over each other, crashing through hedges, and vanishing into the woods like a retreating, muddy ballet troupe.

I stood there, triumphant, holding my last can of whipped cream like a cowboy with a smoking six-shooter.

“Not today, bacon beasts,” I whispered.