On being a pickle

Rereading my initial post this morning, I found I'd left out an important detail. Why a pickle? Well, it's a bit silly really (surprise!) When my daughter was in primary school, she came home from school one day with a riddle, "What's green and bumpy and stands in the corner?" The answer was, "a naughty pickle." For some bizarre reason I said, "That's me!" and, perhaps more bizarrely, it stuck. My daughter (M) said to me only recently that I have a green and bumpy soul. Since I have no idea what that means (do you?), I find it very hard to argue with. But I did suggest to her that some days I feel kinda purple instead .. So a pickle I am to my family and closest friends, and now I sometimes feel more at home with that name than the one my parents gave me. I have said that if I ever have grandkids they can call me pickle. I'd feel uncomfortable with a formal title (hey, I'm just a barefoot Aussie girl at heart, rigid etiquette .. as opposed to simple courtesy and consideration ... is way out of my comfort zone, though I can play the part when required of me), and besides, it does away with the whole issue of finding different names for both grandmas, no child is likely to have a pickle on both sides of the family!! And there's one other advantage of being a pickle, whenever I say or do something silly, (which happens often) I have the ultimate excuse. I simply claim that it's because I have brine instead of brains!