Oh my....Pig!

The Grapes of Wrath has been on my Long Reading List for a while, but wasn't in my mental short-term queue until a couple of weeks ago when I read this blog post by Ursula K. Le Guin about "The Great American Novel". So two days ago when I was ready to delve into another novel after an interlude of non-fiction, I stared at my shelf, debating between Bleak House, The Brothers Karamazov, Cordelia's Honor, A Canticle for Leibowitz, Declare, and My Antonia. I couldn't imagine getting past page five of anything (even though I'm fairly certain I will love them all once I get to them), until I dug Steinbeck's masterpiece out of a box shoved under the bed.

It's been happy reading ever since. That is, until today when I came across Tom Joad's observation, "If Ma was anywheres about, that gate'd be shut an' hooked. That's one thing she always done--seen that gate was shut....Ever since the pig got in over the Jacobs' an' et the baby."

What the--!?!! Did I read that wrong? No. Apparently, I didn't. But surely he can't mean a...human baby. The thought was so horrifying I had to Google it for any confirming or debunking opinions. I found this post: The Pig Ate The Baby!

When I came to that part of the book, I expressed my shock by, well, screaming. “Oh my G--, the pig ate the baby!”

To which all of the boys responded by screaming back, “What page are you on? What page!”

It was pandemonium. The teacher next door—a coach–burst in to demand what the heck was going on. I kept repeating, “The pig ate the baby! The pig ate the baby!” As usual, our teacher didn’t speak, but the coach zeroed in that I was the troublemaker. He pointed at me and said, “Go see the nurse.”

The fact that Steinbeck had a pig eat a baby seemed slightly less horrible after reading such a funny account of it. But seriously, it's even worse than when the Compys (Procompsognathus) ate the baby in Jurassic Park!