Day #4: Pickles

 May 20, 2011

Opening night of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. This means my lucky duck, Pickles, was to make his first appearance to my new friends. Every show I'm always excited to introduce Pickles to my cast friends. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is my first community theater, and we're performing on the biggest stage in our city. I'm one  of the dancers so I get to be in Toot Sweets, Me Ol' Bamboo {even though I'm a girl!}, and The Bombi Samba which is special to the stage show. That's my Me Ol' Bamboo hat behind pickles. The dressing room at this theater is so big, it makes me dread going back to our closet sized one at school.

Pickles the duck isn't exactly a duck. He's a cat duck. He has whiskers, you see. You can see them if you look closely enough at this picture. I got Pickles in middle school at a parade the band played in during the course of our school musical, which was Fiddler on the Roof. I won him in one of those games that is impossible to lose at. I was fascinated with the cheapness of him that he had threads poking out of his face when I realized that he wasn't even a duck at all! And more importantly, that he was completely one of a kind.

I became attached to the little duck, and very protective. He went to each of our shows performances with me and became a little infamous within my cast friends. Pickles has been with me through each and every show performance since. Fiddler on the Roof, High School Musical {ugh.}, Oliver!, Beauty and the Beast, and now Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

As you may know, theater folk are very superstitious. I do most of the superstitions out of fun, like the penny in the shoe, pinky break a leg kisses before shows, not saying the name of a particular Shakespearean play, and so on. But Pickles is the one thing that I am serious about, probably because he has so much sentimental value to me. I cannot forget him or I expect I would be too nervous about the show to even function {I assume because it's never happened. There have been some scares, but it's never truly happened.} I don't know how long I'll have Pickles until he is lost, damaged, or simply forgotten, but I know it will be a sad day for me whenever he ceases to be a part of my performance routine. I know it will inevitably happen, but I still picture my adult theater career with Pickles beside me as my best superstitious quirk.

-Kaylyn