Pickles. Yes, Pickles.

6-20-2013

Learning to Love Pickles

 

            In trying to pick a topic from my list to write about tonight, I came across the title of this post.  I thought it’d be fun to throw a few more pieces together for you, for me, for my soul.

            In 8th grade, my close friend Alle* called me and told me that a modeling school called Barbizon was coming to town to do a model search for their classes, and that she was auditioning and I should do it with her.  I talked it over with my dad, found the ad in the paper, and decided to go for it.

            We auditioned, were called back, and were both given spots in the class.  The class started in the fall, and would go through the spring, with classes for about 6 hours every other Saturday.  My dad and Alle’s mom took turns driving us to the classes, and afterwards, we spent time together practicing everything we just learned, having sleepovers, and eating (and then analyzing what we were eating, thanks to our newfound model knowledge).

            So one of those Saturday afternoons after class, Alle introduced me to Jack-in-the-Box, a very popular fast-food chain of the Western United States.  The first time I ordered a Jumbo Jack, their signature hamburger, I realized it had pickles on it.  I don’t think I had ever really given pickles a chance up to this point, and I was 13 years old!  The one memory I had of eating a pickle up to this point in time was an unpleasant one.

            But I noticed that Alle ordered a CUP of extra pickles every single time.  That’s right, a small beverage cup from a fast-food restaurant—filled with pickles! 

            I saw her do this enough times that I started wondering more about the tangy sandwich topper, and pretty soon, I was eating them every chance I got. 

            Alle and I also went to lots of movies.  I remember going to one movie at the theatre where instead of popcorn or candy, Alle ordered a giant pickle!  I now knew that pickles were everywhere.

            Today, not only do I love pickles, but pickle juice. I’ve been known to drink it (maybe about half a glass at a time). 

As far as the pickles themselves, I pile them high on my burgers, the rare one I will eat anymore (more on my “vegetarian tendencies” in another post), but mostly, I just eat them however I can get them.  I buy jars of the slices; at salad bars, I go for piles of the slices; my most recent favorite way of feeding my habit is by purchasing the economy-sized jar of the spears from Walmart and keeping it in my fridge.  I nibble on them every couple of days (ahem—especially right before certain times of the month).  Pickles have become a sort of gauge for me.  If I’m craving them, I know I may be needing to replenish the sodium in my body after a tough workout.

            I know it’s strange to write about pickles.  But, it is a piece of me, so it was going to get written about eventually! 

            Plus every time I stop and think about how crazy I go for pickles, I can’t help but remember my sweet friend Alle.  It’s always so nice to just stop and look back at all the little things of my good ol’ early teen years.  I associate those two years that Alle and I became closest with wonderful lessons about friendship and incorporating positive leisure time into one’s life.  Alle was a really positive friend for me to have in those crucially shaping pre-teen/early teen years.  I loved going over to her house.  We always found something to do that was productive yet fun, and I always felt so much more centered after coming back from her parent’s house.

            I know the pickles don’t necessarily have anything to do with that, but to me, they are an icon of a previous season of my life. 

 

*This is the shortened version of her name, which she went by in grade school.