All the Small Things

Newsletter 2024-12-15

As a family man, my main job is to keep all of the small things in my house alive. That’s easier said than done over the winter.

Friday, I had my first moment of telling my teenage daughter she was NOT leaving the house dressed like that. Most of Betsy’s outfit was fine. Baggy clothes are in style right now. It makes shopping easier. She can wear any size between small and XXXL. The problem was with her outermost layer. She refused to wear a coat. She often gets away with it because she puts herself on the bus each morning. I can’t be the only parent who forgets to actually look at their children before they leave the house. That morning, though, I was on to her. I had to drive her early for one of her million after-school activities that sometimes becomes a before-school activity. There aren’t enough hours in the evening and she’s already quadruple booked. For added fun, the times of her various meetings change between 6:45, 6:55, and 7, offering just enough variation to guarantee I’m always running five minutes late. Given that we were once again in crisis mode, Betsy assumed I would give her a pass for her lack of protection from the elements. She underestimated just how invested I am in her survival.

It was eleven degrees outside. For my European readers, that’s Fahrenheit, not Celsius. In the UK, eleven degrees is a nice day at the beach—or the point at which water boils. I can’t pretend to understand a system not based on multiples of seventeen. Over here, eleven degrees is the temperature where you turn into a human popsicle, especially if you’re wearing thin, loose fitting clothes. Betsy’s outfit violated the third-most important rule in this house: Don’t die. (The first two—pick up your stuff and don’t touch your sisters—overlap with rule three by making tripping and assault less likely.) Betsy thought she was perfectly safe. She just had to walk to the van. Surely being chilly for those few steps wasn’t worth the unbearable burden of having to keep her bulky coat stuffed in her locker all day. No child has ever been asked to endure such hardship. Besides, wasn’t I the guy who let my youngest two children ride in a freezing parade in light jackets? Everything in my history suggested I would back down.

I planted my feet and refused to budge. We weren’t going anywhere until she put on a coat. That took her by surprise. She assumed I was as eager as she was to get to whatever activity it was that we were late for right then. Her main two at the moment are cattle judging and competitive parliamentary procedure. It sounds like I’m making those up, but I’m not. She spent last Saturday at the state fairgrounds with hundreds of other Indiana kids ranking cows by physical beauty. That couldn’t have been great for the self-esteem of the ugly cows, but nobody cares about the emotional well-being of their burgers. As for the parliamentary procedure group, I think they compete with other schools to see who can run a meeting the best. I don’t understand it and I don’t want to. I abandoned my career in journalism partially because I hated attending public meetings so much. It was mostly just listening a small group of angry people complain about the same three issues over and over again. I refused to do that for the rest of my life. If only I knew what I was getting into when I became a father.

Betsy stood by the door, begging to leave the house without her coat. You’d think I was asking her to go to school in some kind of medieval torture device and not a fashionable parka we bought at full price. It’s necessary around here. Betsy was thinking she only had to endure the cold for the walk from the house to the van and from the van to the school, but the ride there would be just as cold, if not colder. We don’t have a garage. My van spends half the year encased in ice. If I want to go somewhere, I have to dig it out with a pickaxe like it’s an alien frozen in a glacier. Sure, I could let my car warm up a bit, but that would require far more planning than I’m capable of that early in the morning. If Betsy has to be at school at 6:45, chances are I’ll roll out of bed at 6:41. I refused to budge. Betsy stared me in the eye, looking for weakness. I looked back blearily, just wanting to return to my bed. She broke and reached for her coat. I had won a battle of wills with a fourteen-year-old. It was the greatest day of my life.

For once, I was also right. Not only was the ride to school freezing, but her teacher wasn’t on site when we got there. Rather than waiting in the frigid car with me, Betsy decided to stand on the ice-cold steps with her friends. It was a good thing she had a thick outer layer to keep her comfortable. I’d hate to think of how many cows would have gone unjudged or motions un-seconded if she had frozen to death.

The pigs are no less stubborn than my teenager, but in the opposite direction. They do everything in their power to stay warm. Miniature swine have the same temperature preferences as humans, but with the added disadvantage of not wearing clothes. It’s not for a lack of trying. My oldest pig, Gilly, tries to steal the kids’ coats all the time. When I let her and Luna out of the pig room and into the main part of the house, she roams in circles, grabbing anything soft and movable. It drives me crazy, especially when I’m trying to work. It’s hard for me to stay focused when there’s a swine behind me actively endangering my marriage. Her behavior contrasts sharply with that of Luna, who’s happy just to be in the house. As soon as I let her out of the pig room, she plops down on the dining room carpet and tucks her legs under herself. She’ll happily remain there as a pig loaf for the rest of the day. We should all aspire to be so unbothered.

Finally, one frigid winter day when Gilly was once again circling the house causing mischief, I figured out what she was up to. She wasn’t causing trouble for its own sake; she was trying to build the nest. I went back in the pig room and scooped up an armful of the blankets the pigs sleep on all night. I piled them on the floor vent in the dining room. Gilly immediately flopped on top of the pile and went to sleep. Well, not quite. First, she spent half an hour fluffing the blankets with her snout until they were just right. Her life would be a lot easier if she had thumbs. Now, when I let the pigs out, I build a nest for them right away. Most days, that’s enough to make Gilly settle down. When it’s especially cold, however, she still roams a bit, looking for extra coats or pillows to supplement her sleeping spot. You know it’s a harsh winter when napping directly on top of a hot jet of air isn’t enough to keep you cozy. It’s because of the vortex of cold at the back of the house.

The doggy door in the pig room is the bane of my existence over the winter. Any opening big enough for a hundred-pound animal is going to let in a lot of cold air. That thin flap of plastic doesn’t stop much. The animal access point is built into a wooden screen door. There’s a regular door in front of it that I could close, but that would trap the pigs inside. It would be okay for two of the three. Gilly and Luna have excellent bladder control and will hold it to the point of death when inside the house. Onyx, on the other hand, pees freely. It’s important to remove every barrier for him to get outside when it’s cold. He started having “accidents”—which were actually “deliberates”—in the house when the temperature outside dropped to thirty. I banished him to the pig room and the yard after he peed in the house three times in a row. He sulked in his confinement. I’m a softie. Betsy knew was doing when she challenged me to a battle of wills. One cold day, I gave Onyx a fourth chance. He peed for a fourth time. It had to be on purpose. If he had a bladder infection and couldn’t control it, he would also pee where he sleeps, but he never does. The pig room has been urine-free all winter. The fourth incident was a deal-breaker, even for a pushover like me. He would have to spend the winter next to that drafty rubber flap at the back of the house. At least there’s a nice vent he can sleep on in front of it. He’s still warmer than Betsy when she leaves the house without a coat.

I’ve said repeatedly in these newsletters that Onyx has to go, but that’s easier said than done. Literally no one wants a full size potbelly pig, especially one with bathroom issues. Actually, that’s not true. The original owners still expect him back when the fire damage to their house is repaired. That complicates everything. We can’t just give him away. We need to find someone who can house him for the remaining months until they get back on their feet. Nobody we know who lives on a hobby farm has been able to take him for one reason or another—or no reason at all. I might have set a world record for being left on read. Barring a miracle, it looks like Onyx will be here all winter. He’s not happy about the arrangement, but it beats freezing to death in the yard we rescued him from. You have to be alive to complain. His angry oinks have been noted and ignored.

That causes additional complications for my elderly dog, Niko. In theory, he should use the same doggie door as the pigs. In practice, he pees in the house because he’s old and lazy and also doesn’t want to sneak past the irritable swine guarding the gate. He’s now in diapers around the clock. Periodically, I pick him up and toss him out in the yard. I have to set a reminder on my phone to check on him if he doesn’t make it in on his own. Sometimes, he’s distracted by an interesting smell. Other times, he simply doesn’t want to face Onyx or the other pigs on the way in. I get his reluctance. They’re ten times his size. It would be like if I had to face a seventeen hundred pound giant every time I wanted to reach the toilet. Still, this is Niko’s sixteenth winter. He knows the drill. He’ll make it through this cold snap and many more to follow, if only to spite me. I’m okay with that. His attempts to annoy me will inadvertently help me succeed as this family’s primary defender against the cold. We’re all getting through this winter alive, whether all my small things like it or not.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for now. Catch you next time.

James