“My friends, the good people of Pickle Beacon, I am sorry to call you all here at such sort notice, and on a Friday as well.” Harvey Brineman, founder and CEO of Pickle Beacon, looked at his small but loyal staff across the conference table in the PB factory outlet, directly beneath the great green pickle lighthouse that beckoned travelers and tourists to savor the tartly prepared ascended cucumbers.

“Is if the FAA again?” said Janice Pickford, administrative assistant. “Tell them that unless they want to lobby Congress, we are one lumen underneath the legal limit.”

“No, it,s not the FAA,” said Brineman.

“The FCC, then?” Elle Braunschweig, brinemaster second class, said. “It doesn’t count as a billboard if it’s an illuminated object.”

“No, not the FCC either. I’m afraid it is our old…friends…at Broccoli Barn.”

A hush fell over the boardroom.

“They have built an illuminated broccoli that is exactly one foot taller than ours,” Brineman continued. “And significantly wider.”

Excited, perhaps even panicked, murmurs rippled through the room.

“I also have it on good authority, from one of our agents there, that they have recently purchased industrial brining equipment.”

“Surely they can’t-“ Quentin Cumber, regional manager, began.

“There’s no legal reason why they can’t make pickles, no,” Brineman said. “But I fear they, and that madman Harold Brassica, plan something far worse. Pickled broccoli.”

Pandemonium. Shouting, kicking of chairs. Gnashing of teeth, wailing. The room took several minutes to recover from this bombshell,

“My friends, a broccoli shadow will soon fall across our beloved Pickle Beacon,” Brineman said. “But I believe that we will endure, and in enduring, prevail.”

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