Pickled Pride

Last night a great speech was given by a great president. What better way to savor the evening than with a sampling of some homemade dill and bread and butter pickles? I hoped that the bread and butter pickles would be sweet and tangy. These words that normally describe taste also describe my feelings as I watched Obama's speech: the sweet feeling of excitement, and the tangy sense of apprehension as election day inches closer. What will be the fate of this great country?

The pickles I would be testing had been assembled in jars last saturday. It was my first attempt at pickling anything, and I was excited but apprehensive about how they would turn out. As a financially deficient college kid, spending forty dollars on pickling ingredients and supplies was a stretch, but pickles are one of my favorite comfort foods.

In the middle of President Obama's speech seemed as a good a time as any to test the finished product. Starting first with the jar of dill pickles, my roommate had to help me unscrew the lid since I had so tightly secured it in the first place. It wasn't easy to open that lid, but it had built up even more anticipation for how those pickles might taste. It reminded me of how a new policy goes through the motions of becoming a law. It can be costly to get it through Congress; maybe it will cost taxpayers money, or it will mean that another faction who does not favor the proposed law will be agitated. Hopefully the law will act in the name of the greater good. Citizens wonder the far reaching affects that this law might have. Will it accomplish what it's originators meant it to? Will these dill pickles I made taste as good as the one I had at the State Fair?

No. They were too salty for my taste. Luckily, my roommate loves salty foods, and she was more than willing to chow down on those salty pickles. If that jar of dill pickles had been a law, then it failed in my eyes, but for Sonya, they were just right. Policy isn't a one size fits all procedure, and the message of compromise that was reiterated over and over last night seems more important as this country becomes more and more divided on big issues.

Compromise: I didn't like how the dill pickles turned out, so my roommate suggested changing the salty brine for plain water so some of the salt could diffuse out of the pickles. We will check back on them in a few days and see if the taste has improved. Like a well thought out policy, it takes time to get it just right, and tailor it so that it can positively impact as many people as possible.

After a disappointing taste test with the dill pickles, I had to try the bread and butter variety, crossing my fingers all the while and hoping that my investment had produced something I was proud of. The jar of sweet pickles was much easier to open. Gingerly plucking a chunk out of the jar, I bit into it, and smiled. It was perfect. My hard work had paid off. Even though I wasn't happy with how the dill pickles turned out, this was the best way to learn how not to make dill pickles.

Everything is a learning experience. Even the politicians have to do a bit of experimenting to figure out what works best. I think the biggest take home from last night is that we are all in this together. Whether or not we agree on certain issues, we have one planet and one lifetime, so we should work to make the most of it and make it a valuable learning experience for future generations.

Dill on the left, bread and butter on the right