There are 2 types of people in this world; people who don’t eat pickles and people who secretly fetishize the lonely often forgotten condiment.

No they’re not interested in the left-over lettuce on your plate. Nor does the remaining tomato fit their fancy and naturally the onion is totally out of the question. It’s that pickle, that’s what they really want.

No this isn’t an episode of Seinfeld nor a spiel from Larry David. This is the essence of a true pet peeve and consequently the type of fringe shit that often keeps me up at night.

You know them well. You‘ve seen them. You work with them. They’re in your family and chances are, you could be one of them.

Pickle People
noun //pick -ul pee — pull//

A distinct and particularly surreptitious bunch of folks whose calling card usually sounds something like, “hey are you gonna eat that”? Or the quite popular, “you aren’t gonna throw that away are you?”

(Sigh) They are a predictable bunch.

People whose thirst to satisfy their pickle fix causes them to initiate the awkward moment at which their hand is in your plate pulling your discarded pickle from a mystery blend of left-over sauces and food juice. To a pickle person it doesn’t matter what that pickle may have encountered on its journey around your plate. That is not of their concern. Your pickle game however, is.

Yes, pickle game.

Is that a deli pickle? Are those kosher dills? From the bodega? Pickle in a pouch perhaps? Maybe it’s sweet maybe it’s spicy or maybe, if you’re lucky it’s those fancy little cornichons. But I digress.

For pickle people it’s all fair game. Smothered in hot sauce? Sure. Covered in ketchup? Even better. That dingy soggy pickle sliver slathered in special sauce sitting on your cheeseburger wrapper from McDonalds? Oh they want that too, all three of ’em, they want it all.

And that’s the difference between pickle people and someone who simply enjoys a good pickle.

Their preoccupied in the pursuit of the pickle. Armed with a no-pickle-left-behind mentality and a 6th sense that draws them aimlessly towards you at lunchtime just as you’re about to enjoy a well deserved meal.

Unwrap your classic hero sandwich, bust out some chips, reveal that customary side pickle and they’re on to you. Take your first bite start the countdown and wait as the pickle people are bound to expose themselves.

The rookie “comes in hot” blowing their own cover before you can even take your first bite.

“You gonna eat that pickle?”

An experienced pickle monger has class and can multi-task. They keep a conversation fluid and make eye contact before ever making their move. A true pro let’s you eat and just as you finish your meal, soon as you motion to throw your garbage away it’s,

“What’s the matter you don’t like pickles?”

And they take it. They take it right out of whatever’s left.

Oh it’s just disgusting.

So this whole time you’ve been plotting on my pickle?

No other fruit, vegetable, topping or condiment elicits such ritualized infatuation.

I can’t explain why this happens so often, just that it does. And the next time it happens to you I hope you’ll remember this moment.

And if you ever catch me at lunch and press me for my pickle; whether I plan on eating it or not, the answer will be the same.

“No. You cannot have my pickle.”

#PickelGame #PicklePeople