Olive Revelation

When I was growing up, olives were always stored in the fridge. That's where my parents put them. They bought a jar of olives and once they opened the jar-- they put them in the fridge. That was the rule.

But the other day I was at the supermarket and for whatever reason I decided to buy olives out of like a big bucket of olives. Like those self-service olives with the plastic container thing. The olives I picked had an almond stuffed inside! Seemed coolio! I scooped out a dozen or so along with some oil and took em home.

I unpack my groceries and put the olives in the fridge as per usual. The next day I go to eat an olive and I see that something totally grody has happened to them!! The oil or whatever they were sitting in totally like solidified and turned puke greenish! Slimey! I didn't understand why they went all grosslike. Olives go in the fridge! Right?!

Then I started thinking about olives in general and realized some types must not need to be refrigerated. I mean, they sit out all day in those supermarket buckets. They sit out on bars for martinis. I know there are some jarred olives that must be refrigerated- but it dawned on me that some just don't need the fridge! So I googled around and found out the dilly with olives.

If olives are soaking in olive oil and brine then you need to put them in the fridge-- but if it's just olive oil you should leave em out! That's nice to know. Boom done. Another teeny tiny mystery solved. I'm just not sure why I takes me forever to pick up on stuff like this though.

I mean I only found out ketchup could be left out like five years ago. I guess it depends on your upbringing. Like if your ketchup was always left out, then ketchup in the fridge must seem weird to you. But ketchup left out is still weird to me-- because when I was growing up ketchup always lived in the fridge. But olives being out didn't seem just weird. It seemed wrong.

A few days went by and I watched the olives sitting there. I didn't want to eat them. The oil went back to normal and they were just hanging out on the shelf minding their own business. But I couldn't bring myself to eat them. They seemed too sad and warm sitting up there along with the cans of soup and cereal boxes. Like they didn't belong with packaged stuff. And I didn't like that the idea that the oil was like solid then melted again-- (maybe that makes things cootied?) whatever. it grossed me out on some level.

So I power ate like five of them and then threw the rest away. I couldn't stand seeing them that way anymore...

ok bye!

tOdd