The Incredible Egg

A couple of weeks ago I posted a photo of hard boiled eggs on Facebook. There wasn’t anything special about these eggs, except to boast that I can produce a hard boiled egg on par with any Food TV celeb. Yes, my great egg throw-down has been issued. However, what made me whip out my Droid and snap away was that the white eggs were sitting on my black flat stove top. The contrast made a nice shot.

Once the photo went up on Facebook I got a response from a Dorothy E Nolan elementary school classmate. She said she remembered my packed lunches and my hard boiled eggs. Yes, I toted a plaid lunch box to school everyday until Mr. Grey, on his way to work one morning, ran over the box I accidentally left at the end of his driveway. Then I carried a brown bag. Everyday Mom packed lunches for my father and my brothers and sisters. Well, unless the school served hotdogs and then Mom splurged on the wieners. I got milk money to purchase a carton of milk and when I was in elementary school it was a whopping 2 cents.

I was puzzled as to why after 50 years (gulp) my friend remembered what I ate for lunch. I remember bologna or ham sandwiches on white bread, carrot sticks, a piece of fruit (apple, orange or banana) and Mom’s homemade cookies (toll house or peanut butter). That was the norm, but I recalled the eggs too. We probably got them on sale from Stewart's: three dozen for a dollar. But why did my friend remember my eggs? She said because I got a whole egg. She got an egg salad sandwich. And she was pretty sure her portion of the egg was not a whole.

I was amazed. I thought I was impoverished because I toted a lunch to school everyday and here was this other kid envying my lunch. I suppose today we would have a bullying moment. She’d call me egg-head and I would get upset and cry and be in counseling the rest of my life. But back then, kids were kids and we kept our mouths shut unless we had something really, really mean to say and if we did we got smacked for it by the closest teacher. What I remember about my classmate was how smart she was. She knew how to spell weird. I was impressed. Weird wasn’t one of those “i”-before-“e”-except-after-“c”-and-sounding-like-“a”-in neighbor-or-weigh words. I could use all the help I could get in grade school and this kind of knowledge was a keeper.

Anyway, my youngest sister commented on the photo. She said Mom wrapped the eggs in waxed paper. I didn’t remember that. I assumed Mom must have peeled the egg for her and then wrapped it. I chided her. Why else wrap the egg in wax paper? She claimed Mom never peeled the egg.

This morning I was in my kitchen packing my lunch for work. A piece of waxed paper sat on the counter so I decided to wrap my egg, after I peeled it. As I began to wrap it, my brain was suddenly deluged with memories. I was seven or eight. I sat at the cafeteria table. I heard the rumble of all the other kids sitting around the room. I could smell goulash from the kitchen. I saw the waxed paper before me. On it were tiny bits of egg shells. I could see my friend across from me at the table. I almost cried.

 God, I love my brain.