The Little Cucumber

Once upon a time there was a perky little cucumber. She was cute and fresh and crunchy and unafraid. She was the perfect little cucumber.

When it was time to go home with her parents she was plucked from the vine and they all went home to their vat of brine.

The little cucumber didn't like the brine. It was dark and scary, there was yelling and fights and the bitterness made it hard to breathe. The little cucumber really wanted to make her parents proud of her so she didn't complain. She learned to accept the brine as the way it was. The little cucumber made her parents laugh and did great at school and never talked about the bitter brine that they lived in.

The little cucumber thought all cucumbers lived in a dark, bitter, harsh vat of brine.

The little cucumber had a best friend named Randi. The other cucumbers picked on Randi because she wore glasses but the little cucumber protected her and they became friends.

One weekend Randi invited the little cucumber to spend the night. When the little cucumber got to Randi's house the little cucumber was surprised to find that Randi lived in the sunshine. It was happy and bright and easy to breathe at Randi's house. Randi's mom made souffles and she let the girls watch TV and play with the dog. The little cucumber loved Randi's house and never wanted to go home.

The little cucumber loved her parents and didn't want to disappoint them but that day the little cucumber decided that when she grew up she was going to live in the sunshine like Randi did.

In sixth grade the little cucumber learned about bad parents - the ones that lived in saline solution. Saline solution sounded really scary and she was really glad that she didn't live there. She had good parents.

When the little cucumber started dating she always seemed to be attracted to other cucumbers that had grown up in brine. That was ok, she was going to help them to come and live in the sunshine with her.

The little cucumber married a cute boy cucumber with feathered blonde hair and they went to live in the sunshine. The sunshine felt good at first but then the little cucumber got a sunburn and the clean air felt strange in the little cucumber's lungs. It seemed that after all those years in the brine, the clean air and sunshine didn't feel like home anymore and the cucumber couple soon found themselves back in the comfortable darkness of the brine.

The cute little cucumber tried really hard to be in the sunshine. She divorced the cute boy cucumber because it must be his fault, she had left the sunshine for him.

Then the cute little cucumber met a wonderful cucumber. He took her places and they had fun together and they married and had a little boy cucumber. Every once in a while the little cucumber would wake up and be in the brine again. Then slowly, little by little, the days of sunshine were replaced by days of brine. At first it was a day of brine a month and the next thing the little cucumber knew the boy was 12 and they were living in brine again.

The little cucumber was angry to be living in the brine again. After all the work she had put into doing everything perfectly, she deserved better than to be living in the brine. The little cucumber packed her things and left again. She would not put up with another day of living in the brine.

But, it happened again. No matter how hard the little cucumber tried she kept ending up back in the brine.

One day the little cucumber woke up and realizing she was in brine, again, looked around to find out who put her there but there was no one to be found. She was alone. There was no one to blame but herself. That day she had to admit to herself that she was no longer a cucumber. All those years growing up in brine had changed her. She was not that perky fresh cucumber she was as a baby. She had become a pickle. Just like her parents and her parents parents. She suddenly realized that she came from a long line of pickles.

That day changed the cucumber's life. That day the little cucumber admitted that she was powerless. That her life had become unmanageable.

She got down on her little pickle knees and asked god to help her to become the cucumber she was born to be. That day she became willing to change.