Pickles (In General)

Happy New Year!

So, PICKLES was leading by such a landslide that I decided to close the voting a day early and get to stepping. I was a little concerned about what I should say in terms of pickles since I only really know the following things:

-Pickles are green.
-They used to be cucumbers.
-They make my left eye twitch when I eat them.
-They come in a jar with a very narrow opening so it’s hard to get them out.
-I used to always remove them from my fast food burgers, it never occurred to me to just order them without pickles. Once I realized I should just do that I actually started to like them on my burgers.
-The word pickle is one of the funnier words around. Listen, PICKLES.
-Things can be pickled.

So that was about all I knew. Not very exciting, or funny. Except for all the times the word PICKLE appeared above which was both exciting AND funny.

So off I went to Googletown and, of course, guess what I should find?

An entire website created for pickle aficionados. Who knew there were pickle aficionados? I know that people get sort of hooked on something and love to collect it, for my mom it’s angels, for my dad it was pigs and then canoes (Until the day he died I looked everywhere for a figurine of a pig in a canoe) for me it’s birds, for you it's Precious Moments figurines (even though we all know they come alive at night and run amok reeking havoc). (Look at those last few words "run amok reeking havoc" it’s like I’m speaking in my super-rad-just-created-no-you-guys-let’s-do-it-like-this-OMG-BFF-you’re-a-great-friend-never-change language.) Where was I? Oh yeah, pickles. (Pauses to giggle). Oh, SO, yeah some people collect different things and images of those things and it just so happens that there is an entire group of pickle lovin' fools out there! They’ve got pickle fever! They’ve got pickle mania! They’ve got pickle earrings! No, they seriously have pickle earrings...

And they’ve got a website called http://www.ilovepickles.org/ . Yeah they do. They LOVE pickles. And frankly, what’s not to love? Pickles are a little sour and wrinkly sure, but so are grandparents and we love them. I say, rock on pickle lovers, rock on.

But the pickle is not merely a shriveled up green tube left to soak in vinegar and the memories of cucumbers. “Pickle” is also an expression. To be in a real pickle means to be in a real bind. I wonder why? Wikipedia informed me that PICKLE IN THE MIDDLE and PICKLEBALL are real games, and God help me I will play PICKLEBALL before I leave this earth.

Also in baseball you can have a pickle, otherwise known as the far more aggressive RUNDOWN. Wikipedia, information tycoon that it is, describes this as a "Situation in Baseball". Which I think is funny, imagine it, the coach runs over to two arguing players demanding to know what is going on:

"It’s nothing...somebody is just having a little situation...again"

"It’s not a situation Hank, it’s a fact, you don’t respect my feelings."

"I do respect you, Babe, but I can’t always be there to support your needs, I need a little room to grow and you are always giving me the RUNDOWN."

And then the coach is like, "You guys, this IS INDEED a serious situation in baseball...but let's get ourselves out of this pickle after the game ok?" And then he hands them pickles for being such good sports. And then they quit baseball and decide to only play Pickleball from here on out. They are very moved by the whole experience but they don’t cry, cause there’s no crying in Pickleball.

There. Pickles. Happy?

PS: This just happened...

Daren: are you going to write about Pickles?

me: lol, i just did

Daren: YAY my plan worked!!!

me: did you rig the votes?

Daren: 7 of them were mine!!!

me: ha haha ha ha

Daren: I got vanessa, john and alex to vote and used all three computers at work!!

me: HA HA HA HA!!!

Daren: YAY PICKLES!!

Wow, I had no idea Daren was such a pickle man, although looking back I should have seen it all along. Looks like I LOVE PICKLES.ORG will be gaining one new member this week.