Hide The Pickle
“YOU BIIIIIIIITCH!” I yell to Derek as his eyes widen and his laugh turns slightly nervous… The betrayal. The treachery. The deceit.
Hide the pickle? Where exactly are you going with this Alex?! I KNOW HOW IT SOUNDS… and every time I say it to people who don’t know the context (which is most people…) I thoroughly enjoy watching their wheels spin as they attempt to form a suitable response. If only I could be before you right now and see the frown form on your face as you begin to theorize where exactly this story is going… SPOILER: it’s more wholesome than wherever that mind of yours is currently heading…
I still recall the first day I found the pickle… which was way later in life than the average person… ha ha!… It was December of 2023 - I walked through the lobby of my building only to hear, before then seeing, the superintendent of my building (Keith) and the cleaner of my building (Derek) giggling next to the Christmas tree.
“What are you two jokesters doing over there?” I cry as I make my way toward them excited to see the Christmas tree.
“We’ve got a new addition to the tree this year! Can you see it?” Keith asked, side eyeing Derek causing them to burst into a fit of giggles.
Here’s the thing about Keith and Derek… these two gentlemen(?) that are in their late 40’s/early 50’s, have the most endearing friendship I have ever witnessed between two men thus far in my life. Derek has been working in my building for over a decade and Keith for the last 5 years. Over the course of those 5 years I’ve seen them grow their friendship and it has been a blessing to witness. Every year the two of them assemble and decorate the lobby Christmas tree together. They make a day it… oh, and they wear “ugly” Christmas sweaters while doing so…
Keith plugs in his speaker and Christmas music consumes the lobby. Derek takes the lead on where the ornaments are placed on the tree, as he’s the creative genius behind this particular endeavour. He climbs up high on the ladder, meticulously placing each ornament while Keith patiently stands at the base with the next ornament ready. Occasionally they peer toward the concierge (George), a self proclaimed “Grinch”, and laugh as this explosion of Christmas comes to emerge before him as though his nightmare has come to life. They’ll ask… “What do you think George?!” To which George will raise one eyebrow and suggest they place the tree perhaps a few more feet to the left that way it’ll be juuuuuust out of his line of sight. Then they’ll all laugh together… well, George will smirk.
One of my neighbours said it best to me last month - “You want to see pure joy and happiness? Go watch Keith and Derek put up the Christmas tree!”
You feeling the adorable yet?! Perfect - back to the pickle…
I look at them with suspicion… and rightfully so, I’ve been fooled before by this delightful duo. Well… mainly by Derek. You see, Derek enjoys playing pranks on me… but that’s a story for another day. I turn to the tree and slowly circle the front…squinting my eyes I scan up and down, taking this mission to find something amiss very seriously. I quickly spot something very shiny that certainly doesn’t look like it belongs…
I pick the shiny object off the tree and walk toward them with it hanging from my finger - “Is this a pickle ornament?!”
Now the giggles have evolved into deep belly laughter… and I’ve joined in.
“Are you guys responsible for this? Where the heck did you find it?!” I ask in between laughs while I spin it around, inspecting every inch.
George looks up from his desk, for a mere moment to grunt and smirk before he looking back down and away.
Turns out Keith was shopping at Dollarama the day before and this pickle ornament caught his attention and in that moment he knew he had to buy it for the building. Immediately my heart fills with warmth for this amazing human before me… He felt joy when seeing this ornament and wanted to share that joy with all of us that reside here in my building. How’d we get so lucky to have him here with us?!
I didn’t know it then but as I stood there, holding that pickle ornament laughing with Keith and Derek… an epic new Christmas tradition in our building was born.
It all started innocently enough… I’d go down to the lobby, see the tree and notice the pickle ornament was gone. “Where it’d go?!” I’d ask George, the only one in the lobby at the time… He’d look at me, shrug then look down again. I’d search for it confused only to find it in a completely different spot…
“FOUND IT! Ahhh, I see how it is!” I say aloud, the competitive spirit within me awakened. “GAME ON FELLAS!” I cry, as George continues to look down but adds a slow shake of his head.
It was on… and it was fun! We only had one rule which was that the pickle had to be hidden ON the tree. Any time I was in the lobby I’d check to see if it was where I had last put it - if it wasn’t, I’d look for it… it’d only take a few minutes to find then I’d hide it elsewhere. At the time, it was just myself, Keith and Derek participating in the game. But like any game… when it’s too easy, after awhile it kind of gets boring and you want to, scratch that… NEED to, up the ante. So that’s when I told my bestie, the Russian Guard (if you don’t know our story - here it is) about this new game we had going on called “hide the pickle”…
“Pickle?!” he asks in his thick Russian accent. “What does it look like?!”
“Well… a pickle!” I respond in a sassy tone.
He scoffs - “I know this Alex but like what size? How big? How little is pickle…?”
I look at him, he looks at me… we break out into giggles. We’re only human after all…
“Here!” I cry… “I found it! This… this is what it looks like!”
The Russian Guard takes the glasses off his head and secures them on his ears as he takes the pickle from me and observes it closely. He removes his glasses and hands the pickle back to me…
“Yes. Excellent. Now we hide it? Is their prize in game? There should be prize in game…” He says raising his arms to emphasize his passion on the topic.
I laugh as I go to hide the pickle while he criticizes my choice of hiding spot…
“Alex, come on now that’s too easy!” he says, just kidding… he YELLS… “You must try harder!”
He’s calling me out and my competitive spirit has awakened even further which is, at times, not a good thing…
So… that’s where things went from fun, light and easy to… still fun, a little less light, and a whole lot harder.
I exit the elevator into the lobby with Alfie as we head out for our morning walk and immediately hear someone yell my name. I turn to see Derek and Keith standing by the tree… “Where’s the pickle?!” Keith asks with confusion but a smile on his face. “Derek said he didn’t hide it last but I don’t know if I believe him…”
“I told you I didn’t hide it! YOU HID IT!” Derek yells in retort.
I watch as the two of them jokingly accuse the other of being the last one to hide the pickle knowing it was the Russian Guard and I…
“Maybe it was George…?” I question with a suspicious tone as we all turn to him seated at his desk…
George, yet again, doesn’t even lift his head… but we do get a response with the roll of his eyes and a smirk.
I turn to walk out the front door…
“WAIT - was it you?!” Keith yells from a distance…
“I’m not sure! Was it?!” I respond without looking back as I disappear out the front door… I love a dramatic exit…
This was Christmas of 2023. The Russian Guard and I continued to hide it in very difficult places - including inside one of the ornaments on the tree to which it could never be found. We waited until the end of the season for that spot and self proclaimed ourselves as the winner of “hide the pickle”…
“WE WON!” I yell as I run out of the elevator one night post yoga to tell him the great news.
“We won?!? YESSSSS!” he cries as he stands up from his desk to high five me. “Where’s our prize?!”
There he goes about the dang prize again! I had tried to explain to the Russian Guard on many occasion that we created this game so we’d have to be the one to buy the prize… cause who else would? And his response… was to simply not acknowledge that reasoning.
“The prize is us knowing that we’re smarter and sneakier than everyone else…” I respond while the Russian Guard looks up to ponder this.
He slowly nods his head… “Is true, Alex… is true…”
Recently we all celebrated Christmas of 2024 and, in turn, the return of “hide the pickle”… and things… well, they escalated fast…
“YOU BIIIIIITCH!” I scream, louder than intended causing George to FINALLY look up from his desk and shoot me a stern look that very clearly states, You better lower that voice, missy. STAT. I give him a nod of acknowledgement and look back to Derek, the “bitch” in question, and whisper… “Youuuuuuu biiiiiitch…”
We covered earlier how Derek can be quite the prankster. He’s not just a silly prankster, he’s clever one… this is something I often forget because he perfectly times his pranks so that you, the target of said prank, have let your guard down since the last one. It’s quite genius on his part, and infuriating for me… the one that is often the target. Therefore, on December 2 of 2024… yes, I do recall the exact date, my guard was very much down… and Derek, in all his pranking wisdom, knew it…
I’m in the lobby of the building and am just simply tickled pink to see Keith and Derek hovering around the tree looking for the pickle. You see, it was a Monday and the Friday before the Russian Guard and I relocated the pickle to what we deemed to be an absolute genius hiding spot. We high fived one another and partook in a “Dr. Evil” level laughing fit before parting ways for the night knowing that no one would be able to find it…
“Good Morning, gentlemen! Any luck?!” I ask and glide toward them with, to be honest, an arrogance that was a tad much for a game of “hide the pickle”… although the dramatics is what actually makes the game fun so… *correction* an arrogance perfectly suitable for a game of “hide the pickle”.
No such luck for Keith and Derek… they were frustrated and convinced that the pickle wasn’t actually on the tree. I hear echoes of that evil laughter between the Russian Guard and I play through my mind as I smile and tell them, “Nope, it’s on the tree! I promise!”.
They don’t believe me…
Derek continues to search the tree while Keith takes a phone call and I get distracted by one of my neighbours I hadn’t seen for a while that had just entered the lobby. We catch up for a few minutes and I turn to the tree to explain the game to my neighbour and that’s when we see Derek, standing next to the tree smiling ear to ear with the pickle ornament dangling from his finger, swinging side to side. “I found it, Alex!” he laughs.
“HUH?! Where did you find it?!” I cry causing my my neighbour to look at me, noticeably confused by my intensity.
“I found it right here!” Derek says pointing to the part of the tree directly in front of him which is the exact spot that we did NOT hide it…
“WHAT?! I DIDN’T HIDE IT THERE!” I cry in confusion taking a few steps closer to the tree. “Someone else must have found it over the weekend and moved it there…”
I shake my head in confusion wondering who could have possibly joined this game outside of myself, the Russian Guard, Derek and Keith. Who else knew we were playing this game and was passionate enough about it to work so hard to find the pickle in the brilliant spot the Russian Guard and I chose?
I wrack my brain to find an answer to this question while the neighbour I was catching up with says aloud, “Ohhhh you crazy kids!” and quickly shuffles out the front door still very confused as to what he just witnessed.
Keith rejoins Derek and I after his phone call while I continue to shake my head…
“I don’t know who found it! I hid it so well… I literally had to get on my back and shimmy under the tree to attach it.” I say and then turn to Derek… “Which, by the way, not even a speck of dust on my back that’s how clean you keep our floors!” I high five Derek.
“Oh! It’s under the tree?!” Keith cries and lowers to the ground, turns onto his back and shimmies under the tree…
“What are you doing?! It’s not actually there anymore…” I respond with a laugh before a feeling of doom washes over me…
“THERE IT IS! Wow… Alex - you really did hide it well!” a muffled Keith cries from under the tree.
I look to Derek who is now bent over in laughter while Keith emerges from below the tree and stands tall holding the pickle. My head jerks back and forth between Derek and Keith who are both individually holding the exact same pickle ornament…
“I don’t understand…” I say aloud while my brain is trying to comprehend how this is possible.
Keith looks at Derek, who remains laughing in the corner… then looks at me. “Well remember how we couldn’t find the pickle ornament this year so went shopping last week to buy a new one so we could keep the game going? Well… Derek bought one for his tree at home too! I guess he didn’t bring it home yet…”
My eyes widen as the realization consumes me… I’ve been made A FOOL!
While my guard was down, Derek’s cunning mind went into overdrive. I was looking away from the tree talking to my neighbour so Derek ran into “his office” aka the storage room which was out of my line of sight. He quickly grabbed the pickle ornament, stealthily returned to the tree and stood… dangling that ornament, waiting for the moment that I would turn back toward him and the tree, ready to taunt me… ready for me to question where he found it. Ready for me to ultimately be THE FOOL and indicate exactly where the REAL pickle was…
ABSOLUTE GENIUS… but more importantly, in that moment… What. A. Bitch.
“YOU BIIIIIIIITCH!” I yell to Derek as his eyes widen and his laugh turns slightly nervous…
The betrayal. The treachery. The deceit.
I’m impressed…
I suggest one of his fingers be removed as punishment for this crime. I’m told that’s a bit dramatic to which I roll my eyes and say… “Is it though? You could use one of your MANY pickle ornaments as a replacement for the finger…”
And that folks is how “Hide The Pickle - 2024” commenced. It was with such intensity that the rest of the game through the Holiday season remained light and playful. Perhaps because our natural human instinct was to level things out so the game would remain just a game and not an all out war… or perhaps because Derek was truly concerned I would remove one of his fingers should such deceit continue… We’ll never know…
Either way the true spirit of the game prevailed. The true spirit being to connect with the people around us - in this situation the people being the beautiful souls that are a part of my building. We connected through the art of play which is, in my opinion, the most powerful form of connection. It allows us to be active, competitive, creative, poke fun at one another and be inspired by one another. It makes the building a pleasant and fun atmosphere where its people actually want to go to work at and a warm, welcoming, playful space where people actually enjoy coming home.
The vast majority of people in my building did not partake in the game yet many were aware it was ongoing. Some discovered the game by it being it described to them… and some learned by seeing it play out themselves. For example…
There was that one time I saw a neighbour exit the elevator into the lobby so I yelled “Hello!”, startling them. They looked around until finally looking up and laughing as they found me atop a 10 foot ladder attempting to find a new hiding spot. “What the heck are you doing up there?!” They cried in confusion… Oh, ya know… just hiding the pickle…
Or that one time a neighbour came home only to find me laying on my back, partially under the Christmas tree while the Russian Guard stood over me yelling directions with his arm held high holding a flashlight so I could see better. “ALEX! You sure this is right spot? You must attach well or else will fall and then we lose!” he yells while my neighbour paused to observe before continuing toward the elevator…
Or that one I was talking to the Russian Guard at the front desk and a neighbour comes in, joins our conversation and with no context whatsoever the Russian Guard says, “You know Alex tells everybody everything… I used to think she was smartest in building but now I’m not so sure!” The context here being that he was still pissed at me for showing Keith and Derek where I hid the pickle because he thought I was too easily tricked and should’ve known better…
“Hide The Pickle” evolved into “Hide The Gnome”… a summer version of the game which came into existence last year. I noticed a gnome on our communal terrace and discovered Keith had purchased the gnome to place on the terrace, curious as to whether or not it would “freak anybody out.” It didn’t take long for us to begin hiding the gnome from another on the very large terrace. It also didn’t take long for the Russian Guard to join the game… or for the true shenanigans to commence… I once was sat, working on the terrace with headphones on and when I turned to leave I screamed as I found the gnome starting at me, perched on the garden bed less than a foot away. Keith had somehow managed with, what must be ninja level ability, to sneak in that close to me and place it there without my knowledge…
How cool is it that all this fun started because one marvelous human saw a pickle ornament at a store that made him giggle… Everything amazing that exists starts with one person and continues because of others. We can all be that one person to start “something” and we can all be one of the many ensuring that that “something” continues… and even better, thrives…
Hey did you know there’s a building in Ottawa where the people that work and live there play “hide the pickle” on their lobby Christmas tree?
Who the heck wouldn’t want to live there?!
