On the Making of Pickles

So my 85-year-old patient is telling me a story of the home health nurse that came to visit him while he was recuperating from foot surgery.

In their discussion they started talking about the difficulties she had with getting Bermuda grass to grow in a bare spot on her lawn. He discussed with her the intricacies of preparing Bermuda sprouts from grass runners in the yard.

He told me that he and his wife obtained some runners from their yard and prepared them in the normal fashion by misting them with water, wrapping them in moist paper towels and placing them in the bottom of their refrigerator.

When the visiting nurse came back he presented her with a package of prepared Bermuda runners and instructed her on his technique for planting the Bermuda grass runners. He also advised her that she should keep these Bermuda grass sprouts wrapped in the moist paper towels in the bottom of her refrigerator until she was ready to plant them.

She expressed an understanding of his integrate instructions.

The visiting nurse returned approximate three or four days later with an "update" to tell my patient.

Evidently her husband had been raising cucumbers in his garden and decided to make some dill pickles. He went through the entire process and found what he thought was fresh dill in the bottom of her refrigerator... so he dutifully put these into the pickle preparations.

Later that evening he then proudly showed her his first batch of dill pickles. The nurse stated that there... in each bottle of his beloved pickles... was Bermuda grass sprouts, carefully chopped up to make the pickles quite appealing...

My patient ask the nurse if they ate the pickles and she said of course not.

He chastised her for an opportunity to develop a new type of pickle which had been delicately seasoned... with Bermuda sprouts.