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The Story Behind The Story
by Grace Gannon Rudolph

Wolf and his foxy vixen lady friend Vicky decided to have a late night, candle lit picnic on the patio. He slipped a Frank Sinatra CD into the stereo and barbequed some ribs while Vicky tossed the Caesar salad – no anchovies, heavy on the garlic. Suddenly loud hip hop music erupted from the house next door.

Mr. Wolf bounded across the yard to his neighbor’s door huffing and puffing. To his surprise the straw house blew apart, startling the pigs inside who had been lurching to the music, burping, belching, and crushing beer cans against their foreheads. They smiled as Mr. Wolf howled, “Pipe down.”

The following day the pigs and several friends nailed together a shack from abandoned wood, twigs and bark. That evening they celebrated, tripping the light fantastic on cloven hooves. Mr. Wolf, ground his teeth, stormed over to their house, pounded on the door, and when he huffed and puffed the walls tumbled away. The pigs, stopped in mid-Rumba, flashed him tipsy smiles and went back dancing. “Don’t you guys ever sleep?” he bellowed.

The next day he watched as the pigs and their friends slapped together a new home with bricks, boulders, and a few cobble stones they tore up from the side of the road. “Yeah!” Mr. Wolf thought. “Right! Like that’s gonna help!”

That night he and Vicky arrived home after an evening at the Opera. There was a full moon. The scent of magnolias filled the air. As she reclined on the divan he prepared a beverage: shaken, not stirred, a twist of lemon for her, an olive for him. Suddenly music from the house next door pulsed through the house, rattling his wine rack and tumbling jazz CDs from the cabinet to the floor.

He stormed to his neighbor’s home, frothing at the mouth, and began to beat on the door. While he huffed and puffed, the pigs dialed 911.

Because he was seeing red he didn’t notice the flashing blue lights or hear the wail of a siren as a cruiser pulled to the curb behind him. Two Razorbacks got out of the car, adjusted their belts, and came up behind him. They cuffed him, took him to the station and booked him.

Eventually he went to court and was put on trial for malicious damage to property, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon - his breath, and inciting a riot. The Razorbacks had confused the raucous noise inside the pig’s house with the sounds of a full-blown frightened riot.

By the time he was paroled the pigs had received their settlement and hired an architect who hired a contractor who built a chateau large enough to cast shadows on Wolf’s home by day and inky darkness by night. The mansion was surrounded by manicured lawns, topiary out front, an in ground pool out back, and an open hotline to the pizza delivery guy.

The moral: Wolves are lady’s men but pigs are meant to party.