The Cucumber Slice

sheer gratuity

There is probably a perfectly normal explanation for the slice of cucumber that has attached itself to my driver’s side passenger window like a remora. No one knows exactly when it appeared. One day, when I was dropping my grandson off, he said, “Papa, I’ve been meaning to ask you, why do you have a cucumber on your window? I saw it the other day, but I forgot to ask.” I didn’t know what he was talking about. Upon further inspection, I discovered that there was indeed a slice of cucumber somehow riding along for my municipal adventures. At first, I thought it might be a sticker, but my son determined that it was an actual slice of cucumber.

It is not uncommon for the grandkids to eat cucumber slices, and I pondered the mechanics of a child placing a cucumber slice high up on the window before getting into the car. However, this was clearly not one of their cucumbers. This was a cucumber cut for an adult. When we slice cucumbers for the kids to eat, we use a knife, and the slices are fairly thick. My car window cucumber is sliced very thin — as if it had been shaved from the fruit by a mandolin. The manner of its adhesion is also mysterious, and I can only conjecture that its desiccation is somehow working like the feet of a gecko and providing a larger surface area than is implied by its modest circumference. It has maintained its curiously strong cucumber grip through freezes, rain storms, wind, and 80 mph car rides.

It’s been there long enough that removing it doesn’t seem morally right anymore. I’m assuming that one day it will leave as mysteriously as it appeared. Something about the random and arbitrary appearance of a cucumber slice simply delights me. It seems so determined to spend some of its time with me. There is a graciousness in capricious events. When they strike, you can find it annoying, or you can think, “Hmmm. So now I’m the guy that rides around with a slice of cucumber on his car window.”

I do wonder what it’s all about, and when I daydream, I imagine a far off time when someone will come to me and say, “I was in a dark place in my life. Nothing was making sense. Even vegetables didn’t make sense then. Then, one day, I was walking through the parking lot, and I saw this car with a slice of cucumber on the driver’s side passenger window. It was Dadaist art. Or maybe, it was some kind of performance art thing. Whatever it was, it changed me for the better.” And then I will say, “Oh yes. I remember. I was the cucumber guy for a while in 2025. That all makes sense now.”