There once was a very haughty highbred porpoise that had a special appetite for pickles.

She particularly relished them when they accompanied steamed whitefish although it was a known fact that whitefish, being an equanimitous, one could even say complacent kind of creature, needed a lot of taunting to get really steamed up. So sometimes she had to settle for pickles and lethargic whitefish or else just go hungry but fortunately for the porpoise, she was well endowed with the nasty talent of being able to so quickly recognize and viciously fish out weak spots in almost anyone that even a Zen master would have trouble keeping his cool. And it made sense for her to play this card to the hilt when she came across a delicious looking whitefish. Then there was the question of choosing the proper pickle.

Perhaps you think that pickles can't talk. Well, you're wrong! I suppose you know that pickles are nothing more than cucumbers soaked in brine, or sometimes vinegar, and that vegetables can talk when they're alive. Well, almost everyone knows that, so there's no problem there, but it's also a fact that cucumbers get extremely verbose when they're pickled. So one day a particularly loquacious pickle began to speak to that porpoise just before she was about to slice it up to garnish her whitefish. I won't repeat the entire conversation but it boiled down to the pickle reversing the process and sussing out the porpoise's weak spot (of always wanting ultimate perfection) and finally convincing the porpoise that since there were also many other delicious and perhaps more tender pickles in the area, she should first sample the pickle before she began any slicing by sucking on its posterior to make sure that its texture and taste were up to snuff.

This was a big mistake on the part of the porpoise. Who ever heard of a porpoise toadying up to a pickle? What was she thinking? She had totally forgotten that she had placed a huge bet with the other porpoises that she would never suck up to anyone and here a goddamned pickle had gotten her to kiss its ass!

Moral:

Never be fickle when confronting a pickle.

Alternate Moral:

If you suck on a pickle, you won't get a nickel.

© 2004 __Muldoon Elder