Image: Me walking on campus with too many pickles, being even more conspicuous by taking a picture with them.

Hi everyone! The first two weeks of classes are over, so much is going on, even more is just starting, and so of course, I’ve decided to write about pickles.

At the end of a wonderful Panera-catered PLA lunch on Wednesday, I made the rookie mistake of saying I loved pickles. It’s true, and it’s as good a reason as any to give me the extra pickles – which is exactly what happened, because nobody wants to take home roughly fifty sandwiches’ worth of side pickles from Panera.

Now, I knew it would be perfectly reasonable to eat a pickle and throw the rest out. However, I decided to take this as a challenge. Surely, somewhere on a campus this large, I could find a way to prevent these pickles from going to waste.

My first plan of attack, of course, was to text my roommate. She regretfully informed me that she did not like pickles.

My second plan of attack was to sit down with the first group of people in the HUB I had a vague link to (shoutout to Nora’s friends) and offer them, and everyone who passed by, some pickles. This actually worked for a while, and I ended up with less pickles than I started with. It was especially fun to see the absolute bewilderment on the faces of passersby as I offered them a pickle. But eventually I had to go, and was still carrying well over ¾ of the pickles.

After class, I then went to my dad’s office, where he ate one pickle and was no help at all.

My saving grace was NRT auditions, where I decided to put the pickles in the holding room. They were freshly chilled from being outside, and as soon as I came in and declared “free pickles,” a few people jumped at the opportunity. It slowed down for a while, but after I put them at the front of the room with a big sign on the chalkboard, they became popular.

I also eventually had to leave to do more work, but when I left, there were maybe five pickle spears remaining. I left them with the group, so I don’t know if we actually finished them, but I do know it ended up thoroughly confusing and delighting (or disgusting) everyone.

Images: Not one, but two friends (at least) posted their pickle encounter on Snapchat. I’m questioning whether we should all have something more exciting going on.

The story of the pickles ends here, as does my endeavor to make Lisa’s throwaway comment about seeing these pickles on my blog a reality. I hope everyone’s having a good start to their semester, and don’t take yourself too seriously. We’re only part of this campus for a short time. We might as well engage in a collective side quest to get rid of a frankly ridiculous amount of pickles.