This Little Piggy

BC asked me the other day what a pig was. Not the cute noisy intelligent pink mammal that people eat, but the type of gay man. I posited a half-hearted conjecture, based on my fairly brief encounter with the term. Fade to 20 years ago, when I worked at Marcello’s Pizza slinging slices at drunks all night, a guy walked in all decked out in leather with a little pig pin on his collar. I told him I thought it was cute, and he immediately perked up and said, “Are you into it?” It was a cartoon pig that I didn’t recognize, and I was a vegetarian at the time, but I said, “I love pigs.” He asked again, “But, are you into pigs?” “Sure,” I replied, “they’re really smart.” He picked up his slice midway through my lecture about nursing pigs and teat order, and went on his way. It was only a few years later, when I saw the word in a personal ad that a lightbulb went off above my head. There was no explanatory text accompanying the light, unfortunately, but I finally realized that the leather guy was asking if I was into him, having defined himself or his interests somehow in relation to the pig. If ignorance is bliss, then I’m content remaining in the dark under the light a bit longer, but someday I’d like to know what I passed up.