“Reader, it gives me no pleasure to inform you that behind me was a floor-to-ceiling display, museum, of Tony Packo’s–branded gender pickles—and no, not those gender pickles. There is a second brand of gender pickles, and they are even hornier. It absolutely wrenches my guts to let you know that after ordering the Hungarian hot dog, which I will foreshadow is terrific, I carefully inspected every aggressively anthropomorphized heterosexual pickle, pepper, sausage, and tomato. It makes me sick to know it is my duty as the sole chronicler of This Sort of Thing to disclose what I have learned. It feels awful to share that there appears to be a storyline to this wall of pickles and mustard, a love story I will retell as faithfully as possible. With deepest regrets, this is the story of how the Tony Packo’s pickle and the Tony Packo’s pepper fucked each other and had a baby.”