Eggs

On This Day 2010:

it is 1:30am Caelie required a change of pajamas. The shirt has Curious George on it, I asked her who it was and she said, very enthusiastically "Uncle George!"

In 2010, I was in the middle of my MOPS years. I was on the team then as I recall. I haven't been to MOPS for several years until this morning. Apparently they've expanded the program to include mothers of older children. It's a little awkward to be there after so many years away. And I forgot that they would be serving breakfast.

On the breakfast table, there was a bowl of eggs with a variety of colors and different spots and speckles. They were beautiful. I know one of the mentor moms has chickens, so I'm pretty sure those weren't store bought eggs. I grabbed one for myself.

Something about those beautiful eggs, reminded me of my first ever hard boiled egg. I was pretty young. Maybe 3 or 4 years old. In addition to never having had a hard boiled egg, I had never had an Easter egg. An elderly woman at our church had boiled and decorated a few for my brothers and I to hunt for in the church yard. I remember my older brother jumping up and down and pointing, "don't you see it?" or something similar.

I didn't know what I was supposed to do with this beautiful egg. I held it in the car and marveled at it. Then I looked at my brother. He was cracking his egg! In the car! I knew what was inside an egg and I knew it didn't belong in the car.

"Mama! Jack is breaking his egg!"

She gave him something. A bread bag? A bag they put over newspapers in bad weather? I don't know. Something to put the egg shell in and then she took my egg. My beautiful Easter egg. And she cracked it! Destroyed! She explained that the inside was cooked and after peeling the shell off I could eat it.

I'm not going to lie, I'm still a bit sad at the loss. Even though eggs are delicious.

But the egg this morning, decorated naturally with brown speckles, didn't crack as easily. I was trying to stay engaged in a conversation and quietly, unobtrusively, peel this egg. I rolled it on my styrofoam plate and that did not work. I tapped and pressed it at different angles. I briefly wondered whether this egg actually was hard boiled. I mean, maybe there was a mistake. Maybe the eggs on the table with all the food had actually been meant for decorations.

I kept trying to crack this egg quietly until I decided there was nothing for it, I'd have to beat it against the table. Well, by this point, I was a tad over-enthusiastic and basically, very loudly, crushed one end of this poor egg. Everyone stopped talking and looked at me for a whole second.

I wonder what on Earth they're feeding those chickens to make their shells nearly impenetrable.