Pig Hunters of the world, Unite!

I only wanted pizza. I sat in anticipation of the take away lunch, the only person in the vinyl lounge that was the Pizza Hut waiting area. Then two guys entered. One in his early 30s and the other no more than 18. Wearing ragged jeans and work boots, the older one did the ordering. I tried not to look too hard. Was this guy for real? His voice rasped in a gruff chilled out tone that boasted 'Both my brain cells are working today'. He was like some kind of throw back cross between Bill And Ted (as in Excellent Adventure), Wurzel Gummidge and Krusty the Klown. Perhaps he was the Kiwi equivalent of a Zummerset Farmer. The conversation about the special offer on slab pizzas left me flabbergasted, thinking he actually was either a cartoon character or some kids' TV presenter who had burned out on drugs. Oversized, ape-like gestures, deep, rasping, slow voice. Perhaps he was Australian...

"Aw, yergh. Look at that bike, all loaded up" he said to the lad. No answer. "I bet that lot's heavy. Them boxes.."

He was looking at the only bike in the parking area. I was the only leather clad martian in sight. Yet he seemed oblivious to my presence. He wondered a few more things and added some further admiringly gruff obscenities, he and the lad sat opposite me on the vinyl seating.

"Awgh" He rumbled "Is that your bike there?"
"Yes".
"You on some kind of trip?"
My short explanation of my tour was met with utterly enthusiastic, rasping acknowledgements. His head bobbed, his eyes dilated- not his pupils, his whole eyes.
"What do you guys do?" As the larger than life Simpsons character explained, I tried to keep my eyes from going wide with disconcerted fear.

"Work on the farms up there". He swayed, totally alert yet totally stoned at the same time. "Farmhand. Been there all ma life"
"How is life round these parts?"
"Good as gold"
I asked how the pay was. He seemed please enough to be earning what seemed to me to be far too low a salary for the hard graft.
"It gets me by, with enough to let me go do my hobbies."
Then I opened Pandora's box.
"What are your hobbies?"
"Pig huntin'."
My eyes widened with disconcerted fear.
"We are just taking off to go get my dogs and go find this BIG pig we been chasing for months."

I once read a motorcycle free-ads that the owner was selling his bike to focus on his hobby of pig hunting. I thought that was a humourous interjection for a light hearted ad. Suddenly, my understanding of the world transformed. People actually do go pig hunting. These sort of people do at least. I was horrified and fascinated at the same time.

"How does that work?"
There followed an explanation which could have been theatrical overacting, but wasn't.
".. we set the dogs, some dogs for chasin' and some dogs for bitin' an' tearin' at the pig."

His rasping descriptions continue: he's in there amongst them, pulling up the swine by the throat, jamming in the knife and ripping... He is suddenly standing and has one foot on the table, still with oversized gesticulations. Almost salivating. I get the picture.

Suddenly the pizzas are ready. We part company with more jovial rasping. They jump in their pickup and rasp off down the road.

And I look down, mildly appalled. Meat Feast. Pepperoni, ham, bacon.

They're not all caught like that are they?