The other night I went to the Brewster Academy basketball game. They’re number one in the country, donchaknow. Right in my hometown! None of the players are from this state but it’s still fun to watch them dunk on other recruited postgrads who probably also have a GPA less than one.
So I’m at the game right, with several of my friends, from different friend groups. You ever have your worlds collide, with close friends from different circles in the same place at the same time, like some sort of fucked up social Venn Diagram? That was kind of happening but it wasn’t bad cause my friends are cool, that’s why I’m friends with them. There were two black girls on the bleachers in front of us (which is pretty rare in my neck of the woods, just saying, even at a basketball game) so i was being very conscious of what i was saying, else a mistimed Chappelle’s Show quote slip out or something. I find racial stereotypes to be funny, not because they’re necessarily true but because they are so exaggerated and it’s funny that one can attempt to generalize such a huge group of people with one characteristic. But yeah racist jokes are funny i’m not going to lie to you, that’s just how i feel. But i watched my tongue. I’m from new hampshire give me a break.
SO on to the story, just had to set the scene for way too long. “Does anyone smell pickles?” I say, quite loudly. Several of my friends were outside smoking so it was just me and a couple other kids still inside. One of em goes, “Yeah I kinda do smell pickles, that’s bizarre.”
So i felt really validated; I was like okay good I’m not smelling weird things. I read somewhere that smelling weird things - like having smell-hallucinations is a sign that you’ve been poisoned. So keep that in mind, cause it’s a thing. The smell went away after a little bit.
Later on, after half time, I mention that we should all go get sandwiches at the sub shop after the game. I call in an order and it’s a huge clusterfuck cause there’s like six different sandwiches with very specific fixin’s that i have to shout into the phone at a crowded rich-kid highschool gym to this poor guy at a sub shop hating his life. He says give us at least fifteen minutes and I say you got it guy and I hang up the phone, and there is that goddamn pickle smell again. Now that everyone is around me and not outside smoking the reefer, I pretty much shout, “Does it smell like pickles, or is it me?!” someone says they smell it too and the whole thing blows over, pretty hush-hush.
Five minutes later we moved down a row cause some of the bros-in-training that attend this fine academy had vanished. So we took their spots and we’re stretchin out our elbows, it’s great. And my friend next to me tells me discreetly that he saw one of the two black girls that are now next to us, smuggling a pickle wrapped in a napkin in her pocket. Like this girl was just taking bites in between plays and then stashing the pickle back in her jacket. And i looked at my friend, stunned, and could not say a word, just, “Whuuah?”
And man did i feel silly.
But who does that, right?