theITbaby

the IT city, the I.T. Baby

misc

The Five Little Pigs (2016 edition)

Kim had told Maggie a modified three little pigs story when she was younger, and one day she asked me to tell it. Kim’s version involved a greedy developer, mine added a couple of pigs and more badly built housing, but this is the story as it exists now of the Five Little Pigs. This has nothing to do with the Agatha Christi book of the same name.

The Five Little Pigs

Paul E King ©

Five little pigsOne year five little pigs moved to Nashville after having been told by everyone that it was the “IT city”. Each one purchased a lot of land and proceeded to build their houses, ramming the blueprints through an overworked codes department that was basically rubber stamping any development project that came in.

As such, the houses that were built by the five little pigs – one was a house of grass, one was a house of grass, one was a house of fireworks, one was a house of sticks, and one was a house of bricks.

Nashville Skyline

One day a wolf came to the house of grass looking to purchase the land so he could build some tall and skinny houses on it and claim it was “authentic Nashville” just like every other cookie cutter development that looked nothing like authentic Nashville in the past five years.

Little pig, little pig, let me come in!

-Not by the hair on my chinny chin chin

Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house in

And he did… or to be more accurate he just sort of leaned on the house and without proper structural support it collapsed and the little pig went “wii wii wii” all the way to his neighbor’s house, the house made of sticks.

The wolf headed over to the house made of sticks and knocked three times on the door. The same general exchange was given as previously:

Little pigs, little pigs, let me come in!

-Not by the hairs on our chinny chin chins

Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow this house in

And he huffed, and he puffed, and the house fell down without more than a gentle breeze because the house of sticks was not supported by anything. Something the planning department should have caught.

The two little pigs went running over to their neighbor’s house. The house made of…. FIREWORKS.

The big bad developer wolf walked over and looked at the house before cautiously approaching it and knocking three times…

Little pigs, little pigs, let me come in!

-Not by the hair on our chinny chin chins

Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll … wait… your house is literally made of explosives

"authentic nashville
Nothing screams Nashville authenticity like a three color multistory apartment complex that screams Brooklyn meets San Diego

The wolf pulled out a lighter he had. He didn’t actually smoke but his outfit tended to have a lot of threads that would come undone at random times and he would singe the threads off.

He lit a fuse…

sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

ssssssssssssss

ssssss

nothing… the fuse had sssssssssssssssssssssssssss of there it goes again

sssssssssssssssssss

Nuclear Option

KABOOOOOOOOOOM POW POW POW BOOM AHHHH

The force of the explosion was such that the house made entirely of glass next door was completely leveled, not even a door was left standing to knock at. Four very singed piggies went running toward the one remaining structure they hoped was safe.

The house made of brick.

Knock… knock… knock

Little pigs, little pigs, let me come in!

-Not by the hair on our chinny chin chins

Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house in

And he huffed, and he puffed, and he kicked, and he tried knocking the house down, and after a while he passed out in the front yard from exhaustion and was there when the police finally showed up (the wolf had planned this in Nashville during a shift change so incidents like this were competing with drag racing as schools let out.)

They arrested the wolf on domestic terrorism charges as all the piggies agreed there was none of them stupid enough to build a house made out of explosives. Obviously who would be that dumb?

The wolf was sentenced to seven months in a correctional facility and given three years probation and 870 hours community service. The little pigs rebuilt this time a little bit more correctly.

The developer pig who had done things correctly the first time even though he could have probably gotten a rubber stamp from the planning commission for anything he wanted, had his house survive.

The pigs who had basically just purchased the land to squat on and attempt to make money on the rear end ended up losing any windfalls they might have been hoping for due to the expense of building new housing and having to stay in an unlicensed Air B&B for two months.


The above gets told in one fashion or another every night. Sometimes Maggie is the voice of the pigs. Sometimes as the voice she invited the wolf in and I have to make him so grossly incompetent that he destroys the house (lighting a candle in the firework house, sneezing and taking out the grass house, etc).

Paul King

Paul King lives in Nashville Tennessee with his wife, two daughters and cats. He writes for Pocketables, theITBaby, and is an IT consultant along with doing tech support for a film production company.