From Flames to Flow: How Pickleball Rescues First Responders

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Join us for an inspiring conversation with Brent Kelley, a 17-year veteran of the Orange County Fire Authority who shares his powerful experience battling the devastating Los Angeles fires and reveals how pickleball has become an essential outlet for firefighters. 

Discover why pickleball has replaced traditional firehouse sports, creating what Brent calls "the iPhone of sports" that builds crucial teamwork skills while helping first responders process trauma and find mental relief through flow state.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• How pickleball courts are appearing in fire stations across Orange County
• Why the team dynamics in pickleball mirror the life-saving teamwork required in firefighting
• How pickleball creates a "flow state" that helps first responders process traumatic experiences
• The physical and mental health benefits pickleball provides to emergency service workers
• Brent's firsthand account of the Los Angeles fires and the mental challenges first responders face

Whether you're a pickleball enthusiast, first responder, or interested in how sports can help manage stress and build community, this conversation illuminates the powerful intersection of pickleball, partnership, and mental wellbeing in high-stress professions.

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Transcript

 I would like to welcome a very special guest, Brent Kelley, who works for the Orange County Fire Authority at station number two in Los Alamitos. Did I say that right? That's right.Yeah, that's it. Alamitos, 
Love it. A city I discovered of around 12,000 population. I think that's right. And that's in Orange County, California in the US And you are assigned as the engineer on one of the paramedic fire engines there. Brent, you've been working for Orange County Fire for 17 years.Wow. 
17 years. Yep.  And playing pickleball for about seven years. Yes. , wow. That's a lot longer than I've been playing you really have   no choice when you work for the fire department, at least around here. To try to not play pickleball would be harder than to just play pickleball. Okay. Because it has become such a,  prevalent activity in our organization, So you'd have to try to not play pickleball to 
That's super interesting. So, okay. , I'm gonna jump into this, but I just want to pause there for a second because I do want to just acknowledge the recent fires in Los Angeles.
Yes. Oh, I can only imagine that it's been so challenging for your profession. And, I just wanted to ask you how that impacted you and how that period of time has been for you and your family yeah, that, it was a tough one. It's interesting in our line of work you have no idea.
At any given moment what you're gonna be doing? Because I work at a, I work at a normal fire station where we do 48 hour shifts. So we do 48 hours on, and then we have 96 hours off. So two days on, four days off, that is our cycle. And most of us add overtime shifts in there, so we might do 72 hours on, 72 hours off.
That would be like a typical cycle. When I leave for work, I'm gone for, two or three, maybe four days. And during that time we never know what we're gonna be doing. We could be sitting there and suddenly we're going to a fire or we're going to a traffic accident, or we're gonna go into some kind of a medical aid.
Anytime anyone calls 9 1 1 within our area that's what we're doing. So usually. I'd say 80% of the calls that we respond to are medical in nature. It's somebody who's oh, I'm having chest pain, or somebody having a seizure or a stroke, or maybe they fell out of a tree and broke their leg, or they crashed their car.
Some type of medical type of thing. I'd say four out of five calls are that. And then the other calls are gonna be things like fires, usually structure fires. So it's somebody's house is on fire because some electrical thing happened, or maybe they left a stove on and they left the house and they caught their house on fire.
Every once in a while we go on what are called brush fires or wildfires. Those are not very common In California, they're a lot more common during the summertime and the fall. Just because  the particular winds, the Santa Ana winds, they call 'em kick up and things have been dried out because it hasn't ranged for a while.
So that's usually what we call brush fire season or wildfire season. In this particular case it was weird because it was January 6th, I think was the day that we got dispatched. So I was just at the station just doing my normal thing. It was about 11 o'clock in the morning. I didn't even know that the Palisades fire had already started which was one of  the fires up in Malibu.
I had no idea I was on my my iPad like I am right now. I was just like watching YouTube videos and suddenly the tones went off. Saying that we had a call and I figured it was a medical aid, so I walked over to the engine. 'cause that's what we do. When the tones go off, we all go to the engine, we get in, we drive to the call, we turn on our code three lights and we respond.
But when I got to the engine, the captain said, this is really weird. There's 10 of our engines assigned to this call. And it said that the call is at PCH and Sunset, which is way up in LA County and we work for Orange County. So we're way south of that. So anyway, . We got in the engine and we started driving to LA and then we found out about 20 minutes later as we were on the freeway that like, no, actually we need to turn around because we are all meeting at one of our fire stations to, to group up as what they call a strike team.
So everyone's gonna meet up, this is gonna be a big thing. This is not gonna be a call that is over in the next two hours. This is gonna be an extended call. So we all went, we met up and that's when I found out that my goodness, I am, I might be gone for two weeks. I figured it was gonna be a call that we go up, we handle it, we come back that afternoon, maybe I'm gone for a few hours.
Turns out we were gonna be gone for a long time. So, yeah, we headed up there and it was day one of that fire, so it was right as it was getting ramped up. And I have never in my career seen anything like that. It's interesting 'cause like you hear stories when you get on the job of oh my gosh, some old guy at the table, like I was around for the LA riots of 1990, whatever, or the Laguna Beach fire of 1992 and you hear these stories and it's man, that's crazy.
Yeah, every house was on fire. There were bullets flying. And I realized after I got back from this fire, I was there from January 6th to January 18th, I realized that, wow, this was. The big fire of my career. I didn't know it at the time, but now I know that this was it. I've been on for 17 years and I would really doubt that I will see anything like that again, this was the one that I will always remember, and it's the one that it was crazy. It really was a crazy fire. I don't know if you saw any of the news footage or anything, but it was all true. Everything they said in fact, we were there. I remember seeing the reporters and I was like, what are you guys doing here?
You should get outta here, there was some crazy reporting wasn't there? And I think, for the rest of us, the rest of the world and us. I'm up here in Canada, sitting and watching that, , we couldn't even imagine. We couldn't get our heads around that.
But So what I hear you saying is that you left on the sixth and you didn't come home until the 18th. Yeah. That was 12 days. Yeah. And your family is left at home not knowing what the heck is going on. 
Yeah. Wow. Absolutely. I, and I called my wife Ashley, and I told her when we were at the little meet-up at the station, when we were forming up as a strike team, I called her and I said, Hey, I don't know what's going on, but I think there's a fire in LA and we're going. So I don't know when I'm coming home. And I don't even think she had heard, she might have. Saw something on Facebook like there's a fire. But neither of us really knew the gravity of what that was. 
And you know what's interesting to your point you said that , you're up in Canada and you heard about it.
That's crazy. So when we got up there for the first 48 hours, we were just in it, we were fighting structure fire after structure fire. It was frustrating. You'd go put a fire out, you'd leave to go to another one. You'd come back and the house that you'd just saved, it was burned to the ground.
So you, you were constantly watching all the progress that you made get completely undone. But we were just in it for 48 hours. You'd get 15 minutes of sleep here and there, but for the most part it was just fighting fires, just. Craziness. And then after 48 hours they said, Hey, we're gonna give you guys a break.
So, there's some other engines because during the course of that 48 hours, fire engines from all over the country had come to our area to help. So we had this huge base camp full of fire engines and full of people who were ready to get in there and help. And so we had been there for 48 hours.
We were just a ragtag group by then. We're like, dude, we haven't slept, we haven't, I've hardly eaten anything. I, I feel like I'm gonna pass out. This is wild. And so our battalion chief said, you guys are getting relieved. We're gonna , get you a hotel or something so you can just rest.
And we got taken off the fire line and given a 24 hour break. And I think it was during that time that I actually started to realize hey. The whole world is looking at this. 'cause I didn't know I didn't realize that. I remember I, I was just looking on my phone 'cause I had reception finally, and I'm like, wow.
Like I'm watching all these YouTube clips of, John Stewart from Comedy Central and he's doing his daily show and  a third of the show was on this fire.  I can't remember because it had become very political too, right? It was like, Hey, whatever the waters run out.
And I, that was true. I remember when that happened. We ran outta water. But I didn't realize that everything had become political and people were arguing about it and it was like this huge spotlight was on this fire and I had no idea until I got back into civilization and had a 24 hour rest period.
To be able to process that and look at my phone and look at. YouTube and whatever. So that's interesting. I didn't know that even up in Canada, people are hearing about it. 
Yeah. I think people, more people than, you would all realize were sitting, watching and, praying and sending good energy and, just really, supporting you guys and hoping it turned out, well, which yeah, we knew it wasn't because we saw people coming on and saying what they'd lost and watching their house and even footage, people from inside their house as the fire hit them.
But it sounds like you were very isolated. You were  quite removed from the world, but connected to your firefighter community, your team, your family. 
Yeah. That's all, that's what we had was each other. It, it was interesting because we were in the center of what everyone was watching, but we had no idea that everyone was watching us because we were disconnected from the rest of the world. Strange. 
And you relied so much on each other because that's all you had, right? 
That, that is you're touching on one of the biggest aspects of our job is the teamwork aspect. It is definitely not a type of job where you are a freelancer or a one man show. It's funny you say that because.
At least in Orange County,  a lot of the fire stations have a picture of John Wayne, of all people. And it, I never knew what it was signifying 'cause I'd walk in the station, I'm like, there's another picture of John. It's like the same picture. What is, what's up with that? And I found out that the reason that fire stations put up pictures of John Wayne, it's just like a normal sized photo of the guy's face.
And the reason they put it up is they say, do not be a lone Ranger. 'cause  I guess John Wayne played the Lone Ranger. And so it, it's basically a symbol of what not to be. Don't be John Wayne. Don't be a lone ranger. This is not the type of job where you're going to do everything yourself.
You are gonna rely on your team. So that's why the, if you ever walk into a fire station, you see a picture of John Wayne. It's basically telling you what not to be. 
Oh, that's so interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Because you have to rely on each other. It's no 0.1 guy going in or one person going in and saying, I got this.
You all stand. Yeah, that's, I can imagine that's not how it works. That would not be effective.  Yeah.   So this sounds like this was probably the biggest challenge of your career, yeah, absolutely. It's interesting 'cause you go through the fire academy and when you wanna get hired, one, one of the things that you do is you go through this academy and during the academy , they have a burn tower. They have all these things where they have these fires going and you get to put 'em out and it's very crazy and it's exciting and you get this idea I'm sure it's the same in the military and everything, but you get this idea that yeah, as soon as I go out into and I start doing the job, I'm just gonna be fighting fires every day.
But that's actually not the case.  And I've spoken to people that I work with who were in the military.  There's a handful of people who used to be in the special operations, like Navy SEAL Program in the Navy. And  some of them come work for the fire department after they've done their time there.
And I was talking to a friend of mine who was with the SEAL teams and he said it it's interesting you watch a movie. About the Navy Seals and it's actually not accurate at all to make an accurate movie about them. It would actually be very boring because most of it is training or getting dispatched to something, but then you get canceled.

The helicopter turns around 'cause they're going back home and , it's the same thing in our job. Like most of what we do is not that exciting. It's, oh, we got a structure fire, let's go. And then we get there and no, it's not a structure fire, it's just somebody who has a fire in their fireplace and somebody saw some smoke and they called 9 1 1 and now we have five engines here ready to put out a fire.
But there's no fire. That is probably nine out of 10 fires that we go to. It's not exciting. So when you go to the fire academy and you learn all this stuff and you're doing fire stuff every single day, and then you go to a station and you're like, okay, I am ready and. Nothing. Maybe you go on a call where somebody's having anxiety and then you go on a call where someone stubbed their toe and it's okay, that was it for today.
It's well, where's the big fire? There is no big fire. Those hardly happen. But this was one of those few times where it actually was the big fire,  it took 17 years, but that was it. 
And thank goodness. That is nine out of 10. It's not that big challenging fire and Totally, yeah, because that's the last thing I want is for there to be a, that was a devastating fire for a lot of people.
A lot of people lost their houses. Yeah. So in no way do we ever hope that happens, but if it ever does happen. I'm happy to go. I'm happy to go there and do my part and help out and use the training that I have for something good. But I'm glad Yeah, it does happen You guys are there. You are ready to go. Thank goodness. Thank you so much. Yeah. Oh yeah. No problem. But like you said shout out to all firefighters out there. We all really appreciate you. 
Well, thank you very much. It's, no, it's no problem. But like you said, thank goodness, 17 years went by without that.
But I do think that this was probably the biggest one that I will go on in my career. 
I'm curious then if we can jump onto to pickleball now. We Oh yeah. Knowing a little bit about you. Thank you for that, Brent. I love that you shared that. What attracted you to pickleball?
Or like you said in the beginning, it sounds like maybe you weren't attracted to it. Maybe pickleball was  it drew you in because you had to Pickleball is you have no choice. If you are any other sport, you are just waving a white flag of defeat because pickleball came through, in our line of work, traditionally, like back in the day, like you can, if you watch a movie that has firefighters that was made a while ago, they might be out playing like half court basketball or something, maybe soccer, maybe over the line where it is kinda like baseball, where you try to just, hit the ball over, hit a home run every time.
Those were more of the typical sports., if those were like the flip phone of sports, like pickleball is the iPhone where it just came through and everyone's just okay, we're playing pickleball now. Love basketball.  
I totally get that. That makes sense to me.
Yes. Every other sport and other  sports people are not going to like me saying this, but yes, other sports are the flip phone and pickleball is the iPhone. Love that. 
Yeah, and it's funny because I can remember 10 years ago there was one guy and he worked at Station seven in San Juan Capistrano, which is like South Orange County, and he was the pickleball guy and none of us knew what pickleball was , but you just knew that if you ever went and worked at Station seven.
If I picked up an overtime shift and they, and I was going to sevens, I knew like, all right, I'm probably gonna play pickleball today. I don't know what it is, but apparently there's a guy there who knows all the rules and he plays pickleball off duty, which is, my goodness, he must really be into it if he's playing off duty.

'cause he would go like to tournaments and stuff, and he just was, he was one of those guys who was really good at he didn't have to move all over the court very much, like we'd be sprinting all over the place and he would just hit it in just the right spot where no matter how fast we ran, we weren't gonna get it.
So he was the one person that almost was the tip of the spear for pickleball. So he started getting more and more people into it, but then next thing you knew it was like a tidal wave of pickleball. Suddenly pickleball was everywhere.  Like I was saying at the beginning, you would have to try.
Pretty hard to not play pickleball. I don't know if you could do it. Because a typical fire station, unless there's more than one apparatus, there's four people usually. So, so my station's just a single engine house, so it's a fire station with one fire engine and there's four of us on the fire engine.
So to, to try to not play pickleball would be pretty tough on the other three that wanted to play. So there, there's other stations with more people. If you go to a station that has a fire engine and a fire truck, which is the bigger one with the ladder on top, the fire truck, the one where the guy's driving on the back.
I don't know if you've seen those, but that's a fire truck. So the fire trucks usually have four people too. So at a station like that, there might be eight.  They'll just have two pickleball courts there or whatever. 
It is just perfect for firefighters, these groups of four.
So,  do you have a pickleball court at the fire station? 
We do. That was something that has it's become quite a thing. So, there are more, I'd say there are more stations with pickleball courts than without. And I use the word court pretty loosely.  Someone took some paint and painted a pickleball court in the parking lot where we park our cars.
Oh, okay and then they went on Amazon and bought a net. And that's the pickleball court. So sometimes it's Hey everybody, we need to move our cars. Because we're gonna play pickleball. And you guys are parked on the court right now. Yeah. I move your car. Oh, I love that. I love that, so it sounds like in the beginning you had little choice. You were that fourth person that they needed to play, but what kept you playing? I'm assuming there's an element here of, oh, actually I'm finding pickleball fun yeah it's interesting, this kind of, to me it ties into all the benefits of pickleball for our job.

'cause there're really, there's quite a few. And I think that the first and the biggest benefit of pickleball is that it gets people moving. It gets people exercising because. it's fun to play and I think that there are two, I've noticed, and this is probably true in all aspects of life, but within the fire service when it comes to physical fitness, I think there's kind of two camps.
The camp of, I'm gonna work workout by myself in the gym, and there's the camp of, I need a team sport to get exercise. And then you can be in both camps. I think there's a, it's a spectrum, like I think there are people who are on either end, like there are some people where it's I am not going to play pickleball.

I want to go out in the gym and I wanna put my earbuds in and I wanna run on the treadmill and I wanna have my time to myself and I don't want to play a sport. I wanna do. And then there's the exact opposite of that, which is I cannot stand being in the gym. I find it nauseatingly boring.  If we can't play a sport, I'm not working out, but then there's other people.

I, I find myself sort of in the middle.  Like for me the perfect scenario is like a nice little gym with nobody in it where I'm just like, I can have my time. And I, but I also know there's people who are just like, we, I have to play some sport or else I'm not exercising.

So for me, I'm just like, all right, as long as I can have a little bit of time in the gym also sure, let's go play some pickleball. Pickleball to me is like a garnish to, to the meal, you know what I mean? I'll sprinkle some pickleball in if you guys want, but I. I really don't wanna play pickleball for eight hours.

I'd like to just play a few games. ,  one of the benefits of pickleball in the fire service is it really addresses that group of people that have to have a team sport to get exercise. Because if they don't, then they're not gonna exercise. And in our job, like you have, you have to be in shape at least somewhat, because you don't know what you're gonna be doing.

We, we might be sitting around and next thing you know, we have to put on 30 pounds of gear and strap a chainsaw over our shoulder and climb up a 35 foot ladder just to get to the spot where we have to work, to, to cut a hole in the roof because it's the house is on fire and we need to ventilate it.

So you have to be somewhat in shape. You don't have to be an all star, you don't have to be a bodybuilder, but you need to be in shape. So pickleball really gets those people who don't wanna work out. It gets them working out. 
And I think,  there are , so many different types of people at varying activity levels that play pickleball.
And like you mentioned before as well, with the guy at the other station at Station seven, you can be that player that really moves very little, but you play pretty strategically or you be, I'm more of the one that runs around and is determined to get every flipping shot, the lob, then the one back at the net and what have you.

But yeah, I, I. Understand that I resonate with that. Absolutely. That pickleball really gets you moving around. It keeps you active and it sounds as though that has really helped to keep you fit, to be able to, to do your job. Would you say then that,  your physical abilities as a firefighter has helped you play pickleball?

Yeah, totally. Because I feel like most people in our job are somewhat physical people to begin with, that's one of the things that attracted them to the job. They wanted to have a job where they were gonna be out doing things and moving their body and, not being confined to an office type of job.

I've had an office job too, and those are tough 'cause you're just sitting there, whereas our job you're out moving around. So, so I think that. The people who come into our job are naturally predisposed to something like pickleball because they want to be out there moving, they wanna be doing something.

That makes sense. Absolutely. Yes. And would you say that pickleball has helped you develop other skills that transfer to firefighting as well? I don't know, quick decision making, maybe? Spatial awareness, things like that. Communication. 

Yeah, absolutely. And and probably the biggest thing is like we were talking about it just reinforces that aspect of teamwork, because there are some shots where, you know, if you're playing doubles, like two on two and there's no way you're gonna get to that ball over there, you have to rely on your teammate.
So it, it reinforces what you already know. But it. It's a team building thing for sure. 
I can see that. And I think, that was one of my main reasons for wanting to start this podcast. 'cause my husband Neil and I learn to play pickleball together and then suddenly realized that we were communicating in a completely different way on the pickleball court that we could then relate that back to our relationship.

We've been together 30 years, but here we are all of a sudden playing pickleball and finding that actually, hey, this really works on the pickleball court. Let's take this off the court. Let's take this into our marriage and try this instead of what we are doing that hasn't been working. So yeah, absolutely.
What would you say is your most meaningful connection that you've made through pickleball? Is there one connection that stands out for you? 
I think that if there's one connection that I think is the most meaningful and I think that everybody benefits from this, whether they know it or not. It puts you it's a channel to put you into a flow state.
Are you in Cathy Heller's group? 
Yes.  Yeah. Totally get what you're saying with Yeah, but explain that. . Explain that further. 
We got the Cathy Heller program for Ashley, my wife, and I've been doing it too. And it's fantastic. I love it. I love, listen, I'm listening to her book right now also, and like when she talks about getting into that flow state, I think everybody knows what that is, but they not, they might not necessarily know what to call it.

Like maybe it's just something where, hey, I'm out surfing and I don't know what it is, but I, all I'm doing is surfing and I'm not thinking about anything else. And it, and all I know is I want to keep doing it, but what's really happening is it's putting you into the present moment.
It's a channel to get you into the present moment where you are not thinking about all the other things. 'cause I keep saying in our line of work, but I don't know what else to say in, in our career, some of the things that we have to see and. Expose ourselves to are some pretty horrible things.
Like we, we see people on the worst day of their life and it becomes a routine thing. It's if you're a sandwich maker at Subway you just make Turkey and avocado sandwiches and it's not stressful for you because you're just like, yeah, I've made a hundred. So when someone orders one, you just make it.
And it's the same thing, like when someone's having a heart attack. We as paramedics, we show up and it's okay, yeah, you're having a heart attack, so here's what we need to do. Or this person is not breathing, this person is in cardiac arrest. Okay let's just do what we need to do to give this person drugs to do CPR, to start breathing for them.
All those things. But a lot of the stuff that, that we see is terrible, and it sticks with you. Like you, that's what's so interesting about it. It's like you, in the moment that you have some horrible situation that you're trying to mitigate in that moment, you just do it. You don't really think that much.
It's not until after that you really start thinking about it. It's like when you get back to the station or when you're laying in bed and you're just like, gosh, that was like a grizzly, that was a gnarly looking thing. And it's replaying in your head even though the situation's already passed.
You've already done it. It's over. And in the moment that you did it, you just did it. You didn't think that much. But now you're just replaying it over, over at, over and over in your head. And as I'm sure like your body doesn't know the difference between thinking about something and actually seeing it.
So that's where the damage starts to, build up is all those years. Of thinking about all the things that you've seen and replaying them in your head, and it's like you're exposing your nervous system to that over and over again. And it's, and also like in our job, because we're gone so much, like a lot of people, they have like family problems and all kinds of things that come up from just being gone for like the Palisades fire.
It's if your wife thinks you're coming home tomorrow and suddenly, hey, guess what? I'm actually gonna be gone for 12 days. Or I don't even know how long I'm gonna be gone. I'll let you know tomorrow and then I'll let you know the day after and next thing you know, it's been two weeks. Those kinds of things can have, can really show their.
They're damaging effects over time and people are constantly psychologically dealing with that. So they're all up in their head all the time, and that's not good. Yeah. So pickleball to an, to cycle back to your question of, one of the biggest benefits or I can't remember how you phrased it but one of the most positive things about pickleball is it allows you to get into that flow state to where you're not thinking about.
All the things, you're just in the present moment and all you know is the ball's over there. So I'm running over there and I'm gonna get the ball and I'm gonna hit the ball. And then now it's over here. And and next thing you know, you're laughing and you're getting exercise and you're feeling better.
Those like endorphins or kicking in, you're having fun with your friends, you're building that team aspect. It's not like everyone's hiding in their dorm room and then we meet at dinner time. It's like you're sharing this experience together and you're in the present moment and you're getting exercise.
So it's even just that, it's just a triple whammy of good things. 
Absolutely. I can really relate to that. I've been in, you know what you were saying, I've been in nursing for over 35 years and actually it was about 18 months ago there was an incident at work that completely changed my whole  outlook on life.

And yeah, very interesting because I suddenly found myself in a position where I wasn't able to do the things that I have been so used to doing. When you talk about, people on the worst day of their lives, people Yeah. Really in, in horrible situations. And I have honestly found  pickleball to be my savior.

Like pickleball has saved me from myself because yes, you can get into that flow state that, that you mentioned. You can get out of your head where you are telling yourself that story over and over again about. Oh, I saw that awful thing that happened. And then, you make it about, oh, they're family, , your mind runs away with you. Yeah. Whatever that scenario is. And I have definitely also found that by playing pickleball, you can really pull yourself out of your head and into your body because it is one such a physical game. Two, such a social game. Communication is huge. So you have no choice but to be communicating with your partner.

You are on a very small court, so you end up communicating with your opponents too. And then like you say, yes, all of a sudden you're smiling, you are laughing, you are having fun, and your focus is literally on the present moment. So, yeah. Yeah. 

 Hey, pickleball and partnership listeners, we're going to pause our incredible conversation with Brent Kelly right here. But trust me, you do not want to miss what's coming next week. We've just heard about Brent's harrowing experience fighting the Los Angeles fires. For 12 days straight, but in our next episode, we dive deep into his pickleball journey.

How did a guy who initially had no choice but to play pickleball at the fire station become so passionate about the sport? Next week, Brent's going to share the hilarious. Stories of how pickleball took over his fire station, the surprising skills he's developed and why he believes pickleball is the perfect sport for first responders.

You'll hear about the Station seven pickleball guy who started it all, and how Brent went from being dragged into games to becoming a true believer. So mark your calendars, set a reminder. Do whatever you need to do, but do not miss next week's episode. This is a story you won't want to skip. Until then, pickle on.