My least favorite part of the week is the mind-numbing trip to cold stores with painfully bright lights and uncomfortable air to breath. Although, every once in a while, I’ll find something on the stocked shelves that holds promise—maybe even, too much promise. But, hey, a lot of a good thing can’t be a bad thing, right?

Today, that “promise” lies within a mildly intimidating jar of pickled artichoke hearts. I hold the greasy-looking jar in my hands and think about the contents as my dad slowly disappears from my peripheral vision. Alright, then! I gently toss it into the cart. So gently, in fact, that I set it down instead of tossing it at all. He glances down at them briefly. “Artichoke hearts?” he asks. I nod. He chuckles and shakes his head. I’m always trying to eat new things! But, sometimes, those new things aren’t too great.

  Once arriving home, and everything else had been put away, I take a seat at the kitchen table and go on with inspecting the pickled food. Doesn’t look at that appetizing, but things are like that sometimes. I shake the tightly packed jar, and watch as a red spice, probably chili flakes, flutter around and settle in the vinegar amongst the bulbous artichoke hearts. Nice. I open the jar, it’s lid popping up and a definitely fermented smell permeating throughout the kitchen. Boris, my teddy bear, eyes me from a distance. My cat jumps up on the table to take a sniff—she recoils back and shies away. It can’t be that bad, can it?

I walk over to the silverware drawer, and carefully select the smallest fork I can find. Everything tastes better that way. I peer into the container for a little while longer, stabbing through the oil and into one of the soft-bodied vegetables. Up and out the heart goes, dripping grossly. I wave it in front of Boris’s big doe-eyes. “You want any?”

   Boris “wrinkles” his nose. “Not in a thousand years! Get that nasty oil away from my fur, remember last time you tried to clean me?” I think back to the time I made an attempt to wash Boris, when I got gravy on his sweater. He took forever to dry and his nose got scuffed up. I was devastated.

  I direct my attention back to the task at hand. The artichoke hearts! Down the hatch.

  … Not down quite yet. I contemplate the flavor and the texture. A bit sour. Slimy. It’s got layers, similar to an onion. I can taste it in my nose like it’s medicine. It’s perfect! So perfect, in fact, that I think I can eat the whole jar! Boris notices my newfound appreciation for pickled veggies. “Don’t you try to eat that whole thing,” he says. “Last time you ate a greasy pizza and got a terrible stomach ache!”

  “But that was pizza,” I point out. “Pizza isn’t vegetables.”

  “Sure, it might have been pizza, but greasy vegetables aren’t any better.” I think about that. He’s right. But, that doesn’t mean he can stop me!

  “Well, more the merrier, you know?” I assure him. “I’ll be fine, trust me.”

  One heart, two hearts, three hearts, four. How many more can I hold down? Apparently, quite a few. In a daze of mindless self indulgence, I seem to have eaten out the whole jar, leaving the greasy liquid they were stewing in behind. I think about drinking it, and suddenly hate the thought. Disgusting! I don’t even like pickle juice, why would I drink that?

  I move from the kitchen to my bedroom, feeling good, with my cat and Boris in tow. I flop down on the bed peacefully, full and happy to have eaten something I’ve never tried before. The bedsheets became a little warmer. Too warm. Then, I begin to feel a little less happy, suddenly very full and very uncomfortable.

  I think I’m gonna hurl!

  It’s not anything new, but I still hate doing it.

  I hurry over to the bathroom, positioning myself over the toilet and very cleanly spilling my insides out. Then a second time. And then about half of a third.

  Phew. All done! I allow myself a drink of water. Though it does not taste the best in my mouth, it tastes like sweet, rich victory in my heart. Hobbling back to my bed, I think I deserve world’s longest vacation and some position of power. “So, about the whole ‘the more the merrier’ philosophy you had...” Boris says to me, in such an “I told you so” way that I could just about get sick again. I roll my eyes, a little spitefully.

  “Yes yes, I know. It doesn’t apply to everything and all that.”

  “I’m just happy you learned your lesson.”

There’s a brief moment of quiet, I can hear my cat purring contently. She doesn’t have to worry about eating nasty foods, since fish is always tasty.

  “What would you do if you were President?” I ask, using telepathy to communicate with Boris.

  “I dunno,” he thinks, “probably force world peace. What would you do?”

  I snuggle up under the covers, worn out. “I’d ban pickled artichoke hearts.”