Pickles are pitiful and pallid. In short, that is precisely why I loathe them so. In long-well you’ll just have to treat yourself to this wonderful possibly slightly long winded discourse of my disrespect and dislike of this-sustenance. 

Pickles are long, bulbous green things with little prickly dimples running along the side, as if an invitation to any brave or self-maligning conqueror that might dare challenge it to their stomach. The very rare occasions where the pickle has had the opportunity to meet my mouth, it is slimy, naked except for those little prickles of salty must that seem to inch along your tongue until you can no longer taste, see or feel anything but the pickle that invaded your privacy and the pickle that you’re in. 

When I say that pickles are slimy, I do not mean they slide alongside the tongue like smooth glass but rather they drag, sinking their little feet of vinegar induced nausea with every crunch. 

The one salvation pickles may present is that they do not deceive the eye-they look as disgusting as they taste. Imagine four or five green blobs smack dab in pools of vinegar, all shriveled up like your fingers after a long pool ride but only instead of 80 years worth of shriveling, they’ve absorbed a whole millennium-the old curmudgeons of the vegetable world. 

If one is to eat a pickle, there is only one culinary course to adhere to. First one must stab the offender with a fork, then pulling it slowly out of the jar, lay it upon a paper towel and watch as some of the saltiness dissipates now that it’s away from its pickle friends. 

After an extended period of isolation, the pickle must be sliced and diced so thinly until its chunky exterior has dissipated into thin slices of salt and shame. 

These slices are to be arranged into boiling soup, so that their rancid taste may burn away or  arranged on a platter to be served to your worst enemies. 

Remember this advice whenever you find yourself in a pickle with a pickle and you will prevail. 

Yours truly, 

A fellow pickle loather