The Mystery Tunnels

Newsletter 2024-09-01

I was only gone an hour. I didn’t expect to find a mystery when I got home.

After getting back from the gym, I took a quick shower and started on dinner. The people in this house want to be fed every single day. Children are so needy. I began browning ground beef for my special family recipe for gourmet tacos. It’s just meat and taco seasoning. Anything that requires two or more ingredients counts as a deluxe banquet to me. Fancier isn’t always better. The best possible meal consists of only one ingredient: cereal straight from the box. Actually, straight from the bag since I refuse to pay for name brand cereal that comes in an unnecessary cardboard shell. Milk is also superfluous. The generic, pirate-theme version of Lucky Charms is too classy to be turned into a gross, soggy lactose soup. I want my Marshmallow Mateys bone dry like Black Beard intended.

All that culinary backstory was unnecessary since my wife insists cereal isn’t dinner. Her high standards are killing me. As I cooked the world’s most pretentious tacos, my eight-year-old, Waffle, asked if she could feed the pigs. She and my ten-year-old, Lucy, have taken that on as their special daily duty. They’ve been newly fascinated by our small herd ever since we started fostering a rescue pig, bringing our swine count up to three. The pigs have learned which kids usually carry food and have ramped up their excitement levels accordingly. The sound of the screen door is a dinner bell. Lucy and Waffle receive a hero’s welcome every time they step outside. This time was no different. I listened to the commotion from my spot in front of the stove. Moments later, I heard the screen door again as Waffle rushed back inside. 

“Why’d you put all that stuff in the backyard?” she asked excitedly.

I had no idea what she was talking about. I seldom do. Half of her comments reference some YouTube video never witnessed by anyone over the age of fifteen. I stepped away from the stove and peered into the backyard. I was going to flip my lid if I looked out there and saw a skibbidy toilet.

What I found was not an anthropomorphic commode, but a surprise playground. Our backyard was full of nylon pop-up tunnels and play tents designed for small toddlers or large cats. They’re the kind that fold up flat if you twist the wires at the corners just right, which you never will. As soon as you let go, they spring back into position, fully upright. Putting them away is always a joy. I had experience with this type of toy, but not with these specific examples. I didn’t buy them, and they hadn’t been there when I left for the gym an hour before. I’m not the most observant person in the world, but even I would have spotted an unexpected brightly colored mini playground on the barren hellscape that is the back of my property. More concerning was just how far into the yard the play stuff was set up. Someone hadn’t simply tossed it over the back fence. If they had, it would have gotten stuck inside the temporary secondary fence that protects my growing bushes from hungry pigs. Some of the play tunnels were erected deep in the yard underneath my apple trees in the shady spot I cleared out a few weeks ago with my mini chainsaw. An unknown party had waltzed onto my property, likely as soon as I left the house, and vanished without a trace before I got back. My kids, who had been home the whole time, hadn’t seen anyone. Our zone of control had been violated by Good Samaritan trespassers. I was more than a little uneasy about what had gone down.

A few minutes later, Lola got home from work. She checked the security cameras. We have them pointing out from nearly every side of the house with doors. That section of the backyard was covered by two separate devices with overlapping fields of vision. Both cameras had been off. As usual, it was my fault. I work from home. I turn them off so they don’t blow up my phone with alerts as I move around the property. I don’t need technology to remind me I’m a creepy lurker who doesn’t belong. When I silence the alerts, the cameras don’t record. They hadn’t picked up anything in the backyard during the hour in question. Lola was less than pleased. She messed with the settings and figured out how to get the cameras to record without sending alerts. That would be useful the next time an unknown person dropped off surprise pig toys. As for this time, we were out of luck.

Without technology to help us, we had to summon our inner Sherlock Holmes. The list of potential suspects was long. Our pigs are locally famous. We’re a big deal for the block and a half around our house. The alley next to our yard connects several apartment buildings to a business district. It gets a fair amount of foot traffic most days. The alley also leads to the parking lot for a popular restaurant. It’s the reason we have a sign on our back slab telling people not to park there. The sign also says our property is monitored by camera twenty-four hours a day, which was a lie until ten minutes after the mysterious yard toys showed up. People walking and driving up the alley are aware of the pigs. Sometimes, I’ll be working in the yard, shoveling poop or tending to my extremely endangered grass, when I’ll look up to see a family in a truck staring at me. Well, staring at the pigs. I detract from the scenery. My privacy bushes have failed to stop my unusual collection of pets from gaining notoriety. The list of suspects was endless. 

Almost. While everybody knows about my pigs, not many people would be bold enough to step through my gate. From the outside, it appears to be locked. I slip a padlock through the latching mechanism but don’t actually lock it. It’s there to deter random passersby and to stop the latch from swinging open on its own. If I lock it, there’s a risk it will get stuck closed, which is a big deal. Then I have to either use giant bolt cutters or awkwardly lift heavy trash bags over the fence for the rest of my life. Neither is an appealing option. A random stranger wouldn’t know how easy it is to get into my backyard. Also, they might be afraid of the pigs. They’re intimidating to the unfamiliar. It doesn’t help that the pigs often swarm new people if the pigs think the person is carrying food—or is food themselves. They’re opportunistic omnivores, after all. A true outsider would be unlikely to take such a risk. It had to be someone we knew well.

Our board game friends, Peter and Delilah, were likely suspects. The toys appeared about an hour before our usual weekly meetup. The duo could have dropped the items, gone to the store, and then come back. Like me, they’re known to buy unnecessary stuff just because it’s on sale. The thrift gene is a blessing and a curse. When Peter and Delilah arrived for the start of board game night, I asked them about the tunnels. They claimed they had nothing to do with it. I didn’t have any evidence to the contrary. I had no choice but to rule them out. If only I had a home polygraph test. Maybe I’ll find one on sale.

Other suspects included local business owners. An accountant has his office on one side of my yard. Sometimes his employees will throw banana peels to the pigs. He’s also brought his kids over before to toss apples back over the fence. In all that time, he’s never taken anyone inside the fence. He understands the value of money, so he was unlikely to give me a free gift. Pig tunnels aren’t tax deductible.

That left the business across the alley. They do deliveries. I see their vans come and go all day. Their drivers are well acquainted with the pigs. They like the animals, but they won’t even toss them scraps without asking me. As for the owner, I rarely see her. The last time I did, I mentioned that her automatic security light blinks out of control when it first turns on at night. She never sees it because she’s at home by then. Only my family, eating not-fancy-at-all tacos in our dining room, gets the benefits of this super bright strobe light. I last mentioned it months ago. It’s still broken. If she won’t fix the light, she likely wouldn’t give us a pig playground. I crossed her off the list.

That left Onyx’s rightful owner, Jane. She bought the pig when she was younger and lived at home with her mom. She moved out and had a kid of her own, but left Onyx with her mom, who I usually call the grandma here. Jane and her son still visit Onyx regularly. I told them they can stop by whenever they want, which is usually about once a week. They’re still planning to take Onyx back someday when the grandma’s house gets repaired from all the fire damage. It’s anyone’s guess if that will ever happen. They were likely suspects since they like the pig and enter the yard regularly. They’ve never left anything behind before—other than a large pig, I guess. I texted Jane to ask if she had dropped off the tunnels. She had. The mystery was solved. She apologized for not warning us that she was going to make the delivery. Her son had been so excited after they bought the tunnels that he wanted to leave them here right away. I get it. I have a few kids of my own. Patience is not among their strong suits. My kids would like to keep Onyx forever. Lola absolutely would not. It’s nice to know that the original owners still have affection for him and are trying to maintain a connection. Maybe the grandma’s house will really be fixed and Onyx will go back there without a fuss. That’s the outcome that’s the least likely to threaten my marriage. It’s also the one that would be the least fun.

My kids have gotten more enjoyment from the tunnels than the pigs have. Lucy and Waffle continue to try to get the pigs to go through them. The pigs don’t play, per se. Their main interests are eating and sleeping. We have that in common. When they go through a tunnel, it’s because Lucy or Waffle is standing on the other side and the pigs think they have food. Often, they do. The kids aren’t above using bribery. If they also embraced giving the pigs unlimited screen time, they would know every trick from my parenting playbook. Welcome to bare minimum hog rearing.

As for the risk of strangers wandering into my unlocked backyard, my friend Seth found a novel solution. He bought a highly specific yard sign that said, “Warning: beware of hog.” It then extols people to keep the gate closed. I can’t imagine there’s much of a market for that exact message, yet the product existed on the internet. It’s a perfect example of why communism lost. The sign is meant to be a joke, but in our house, this extremely specific scenario applies. Thursday, I had to warn the gutter guard installers to keep the gate closed. The sign could save me from future in-person conversations with hired strangers. That makes it more valuable than even the longest pig tunnel. Thanks, Seth.

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

James