On Duct Tape and a Prayer

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by Christof Spieler

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It's the end of the Alumni Race and the War Pig still has yet to make its appearance. It's an annual tradition for Wiess College to tote out the creature, a two-story inflatable black plastic sack, and valiantly attempt to fill it with enough air so that it will vaguely resemble a pig.

Sure enough, a truck pulls up and a few Wiessmen pull out the pig. It lies there on the pavement, limp, as four guys hang onto ropes at its corners. On the flank of the creature, a few of the letters in "Team Wiess" -- held on with duct tape -- begin to peel off. A few people try to reattach them with broomsticks.

The idea now is to plump up the pig using garbage bags filled with helium. Two guys pull strips of tape from a tube at the base of the pig's hindquarters and let in one brave Wiessman. Someone else pulls a helium cylinder out of a car and begins filling up garbage bags, sealing them with duct tape as he's done. One gets loose and drifts lazily into the Houston sky. A kid somewhere will be rather surprised to find it.

A few minutes pass. President Gillis drops by to investigate, then drifts away. A contingent of Sid fans, expelled from the back of the track by a race official with headset, shuffle back toward the stands.

The women's race is well underway now, and the wrinkled plastic surface, rearranged now and then by unseen work inside, still doesn't quite look like a pig. The Wiessmen take it upon themselves to move the whole thing a few feet, but manage only to turn it a few degrees in place. They're still inflating plastic bags.

Eventually I leave, a little amused, a little awed. Perhaps the point isn't really to inflate a giant pig. Maybe trying is enough.

-- Christof Spieler, SRC '97

This item appeared in the Features section of the April 12, 1996 issue.

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