"I'm in quite a pickle."

    This was the caption on the infamous cartoon that Tom and another of my friends made. It showed a man with a paddle in a canoe which is about to go over a very large waterfall. Also, the canoe is a giant pickle. Okay, it's funnier seeing it, but the phrase still amuses me.

    Tom was in a bit of a pickle the other day. He bought a jar of pickles at the grocery store, and as he was bringing them out to his car, the forces of gravity conspired against him to dash the grocery bag onto the ground, shattering the jar of pickles. Tom, ever-prepared due to constant anti-terrorist vigilance, proceeded to eat the entire jar of pickles. This feat of pickle-consumption impressed me.

    "You ate the whole jar, right there?"

    "Yeah, and I had to take out the little shards of glass first."

    Because naturally, when the jar had shattered, it filled the pickles with tiny glass shards. But this did not deter our hero, who simply removed the glass and courageously consumed the entire jar of pickles. With such gustatory prowess at his command, when Tom's in a bit of a pickle, soon the bit of pickle is in Tom. And you can take that to the bank. If you don't drop it first.

    In my own less amusing but just as real pickle, I've been sick the last few days. Also, I was informed of the very unpleasant fact that there is a high probability of p.

    I am not referring to the existence of urine. (I was already aware of that.) Those of you familiar with sentential logic will understand that p is a variable used to denote a definite proposition. In fact, you'll also understand the following explanation: I was hoping that ~p, because q <-> ~p, and ~q --> m, not to mention w <-> q. IFF you follow all that, you will understand that I am distressed at the very real possibility of ~w.

    Which is not to be confused with the proposition ~W, no doubt very much in favor among most of my friends, who tend to skew liberal for reasons I haven't figured out yet.