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When Does It Start Raining Pickles?

This short story pokes some fun at guys that get blind drunk amost every night of the week (you know the guys I'm talking about). What's with the pickles? I don't know ... maybe it's a Freudian thing ...

The ringing of the telephone woke me with a start and I tried to focus my eyes around the gunk that I couldn’t seem to rub out of the corners. The memory of that weird dream was still hovering in my mind, and I could not understand why I would keep having such a bizarre dream for the last two weeks. The phone had stopped ringing so I assumed that Jesse, my roommate, had grabbed it. Not having to worry about the phone, I decided to think about this dream.


All I could really remember clearly was being around a campfire and looking up at dancing Amazons with skimpy clothing and a heavy drum pounding in the background. Oh, and the pickles. I clearly remember that it was raining pickles. Yeah, that makes sense.


Crawling out of bed, I dashed to the bathroom – getting some relief was not something that could wait. Once I was done relieving myself I felt a little better, but my head was starting to pound as my blood got flowing.


"One of these nights I’m not going to drink so much," I muttered to myself as I left the bathroom.


"That’ll be the day," Jesse commented with a smirk as we both entered the living room. "Let me know when you plan on doing that so that I can buy a lottery ticket. Oh, and we’ll call Satan to warn him that Hell’s about to freeze over."


I waved a one-fingered salute to Jesse as I plopped on the couch and grabbed the remote. "Hey, are we goin’ out again tonight? I’m just going to veg around today since it’s my day off, but I still want to party later."


"Man, you don’t need any more partying. Haven’t the last couple of weeks of hangovers burned you out on the party scene even a little?" I shook my head no.


"Well, I guess I’ll go out for a while," Jesse continued. "Someone has to drag your sorry ass back here."


I threw the couch pillow at his head but missed by a mile. Damn hangover. I can always hit him when I can see straight.

 

It was 3 AM and we were still in the after-hours club. I know I was drunk, but at least I could stand on my own. For now, anyhow. I was too tired to dance anymore, so I just sat at a table by the edge of the dance floor. The floor cleared out and the center of the floor glowed with moving patterns of orange and red. Smoke machines started pumping out a hanging cloud above the dance floor, catching the warm glow. I knew I should realize why the dance floor had cleared, but my mind couldn’t work out why until the dancers came out. They were long, slender women in glittery outfits like they wear in Las Vegas.


From my chair I just looked up at them and smiled as they danced to the pounding bass beat. "When does it start raining pickles?" I called out.


"What?!" blurted out some guy at the next table.


"Nothing, buddy," Jesse told the guy. "He says that every night. He’s just drunk." They both laughed. "Come tomorrow, he won’t even remember he was here!"


The guy at the next table just laughed at me as I tried to stand up and make some smart comeback, but my legs just didn’t want to work with me in this effort.


"Come on Mr. ‘I’m-not-going-to-drink-so-much,’" Jesse told me as he put an arm under my shoulder and lifted me to stand beside him. "Let’s get you home so you can have some nice drunken dreams."


I smiled. That sounded nice. Maybe then it would rain pickles.

 


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When Does It Start Raining Pickles?, by Paul Cales, © September 2001