Pickle-Tastrophe

Imagine you have a family, a wonderful girl and boy who win spelling bees and track and field days and whatnot. And you love them so much that you keep them in jars. And you fill the jars with brine to keep them juicy, sour and spicy.

Then one day, you go to pick your kids up from school. And when the kids get in the car with their books and cleats, you notice that they are hollow inside, filled with gas. They smell like club soda and taste like sneakers. Inconsolable, you place the children in a plastic bag and lug them to the compost. As you wash the jars with boiling water you cry, in shock from the loss.

The story you just heard was a parable. You see, the jars of children were actually jars of pickles.

And the crazy old man with the wild ideas, the one who tried to warn everyone of impending catastrophe? The one from the prologue that I had to cut for time, the character that the audience only saw from the back. That was Jor-El, Superman’s father.

And that’s the story of how I lost my pickles.