After what must have been a harrowing week, Mickle’s pilfered pickle, a prominent Picayune icon, was produced and returned to its rightful owners.

Mickey Fluitt, owner of Mickle’s Pickles in downtown Picayune, first reported the pickle was missing last Saturday. The business owner and his wife, Pamela Fluitt, immediately placed a call to 911. Fluitt said the police did have a hard time taking matters seriously and he professed they thought maybe Fluitt himself had his hand in his own pickle jar. The trail of pickle juice had been perplexing.

The purloined pickle, given to Fluitt by a family friend, Jerry Strahan of the New Orleans Lucky Dogs franchise, was like part of the family. Pickle press and pickle pictures have graced the covers of many national and local periodicals, pickle related or otherwise. The Fluitts waited until they moved into their new pickle parlor downtown before they hung the pickle from its perch at the bottom of the wooden and wire sign on the parlor’s peak. The pickle perpetrators would have had to work extra hard to pick the pickle.

Fluitt was determined to find his pickle. He posted flyers mentioning the reward of 2 cases of Mickle’s Pickles, $140 value. The pickle pandemonium was just starting to reach its fevered pitch, rockin’ the small town of Picayune, when Fluitt received a call that was music to his ears, “Dad, I’ve got the pickle.”

Fluitt said his son Austin Fluitt called to let him know the pickle had been returned by way of a friend, who had been handed the pickle in the Fluitts’ driveway. Dru Roberts was reportedly leaving the family home when the pickle was handed to him by an acquaintance of both boys who wishes to remain anonymous. Roberts was reportedly told that the acquaintance stumbled on the pickle while the acquaintance and some friends were out four-wheeling. Since Roberts actually handed the pickle over to the Fluitts, unharmed, he will be credited with the return and the reward.

“I’m giving credit to the people who took it,” said Fluitt, who has mixed emotions about the return of his pickle. While he wasn’t exactly “dill-lighted” to see it returned so quickly he doesn’t hold any ill dill, or will, towards the perps — he was just starting to have fun with the situation.

“Have you seen my pickle?” was quickly becoming his new slogan. He said around town people were expressing deep concern for the pickle and everyone had jokingly started to accuse everyone else of picking it — small town hi-jinks.

Thus, the question “Who picked Mickle’s Pickle?” may never be answered, but for now the pickle is back where it belongs.