A woman stopped in front of a hole-in-the-wall shop on 9th Avenue this afternoon. There, she saw a man in an apron standing behind five barrels full of flavored pickles: garlic pickles, lemon pickles, spicy pickles, sweet dill pickles, and a mystery-flavored pickle that was called Grandma’s Pickles.

The woman looked at the man as if he was nuts.

"Do you have fruit?" she asked.

"No. Just pickles," he said, pointing to a sign above that read, appropriately, "Just Pickles."

"Wait," she said, incredulous, "all you have is pickles?"

"Yes. Just pickles."

"No apples or oranges or bananas?"

"No."

"Geez, that is really odd. What about juice? Do you have juice?"

"Just pickles."

"Jesus.... Bottled water? Water. You‘ve gotta have water."

"Just pickles," the man said, with the same tone and inflection.

"You ONLY sell pickles?"

"Yes."

"Unbelievable."

The woman left shaking her head. The puzzled expression she’d worn when she first stopped in front of the store had abruptly transformed into one of anger. As if the man had done something wrong. As if the man had crossed some unknown boundary or broken some freakish law. As if HE was the crazy one.

I could relate to this man. I empathized with him when the woman forced this imbecilic line of questions on him. I felt his pain. I’ve been in this man's shoes before. In fact, I AM this man.

Just two Sundays ago, at the Aqua Grill in SoHo, a group of friends I've known since the beginning of time decided to put me in the Hot Seat, just as they had a dozen times before.

"I don’t eat seafood," I said.

"You don’t?"

"No. You know I don't eat seafood."

"Wait… NO seafood?"

"No seafood."

"Do you eat fried shrimp?"

"No, I don’t eat seafood."

"No crab? Or lobster? You’ve gotta eat lobster."

"No."

"Reeeeally? That's so weird. How can you not eat seafood?"

"I don't know."

"How about baked salmon. That doesn't even taste like seafood sometimes. Do you eat that?"

"No, I don't eat seafood."

"Geez... Fish sticks. Do you eat fish sticks?"

"No."

"Damn…... tuna sandwiches? Tuna. What about that?"

"No. No seafood."

"Man, seafood is so good! You’ve never tried Alaskan king crab with garlic butter sauce? That's like a gift from God!"

"No, I don’t eat seafood."

"You’re a freak."

I swear, I’ve had some variation of that exchange at least 40-50 times in my life.

The Pickle Man probably understands what I'm talking about.