Fantasizing About A Time We Could Afford Eggs
I did something really dumb the other day. I accidentally broke 9 eggs, which is the equivalent of about $2,025 these days, inside of the refrigerator. I also must add that it was not 9 cooked eggs, and why, of all things, DID IT HAVE TO BE THE EGGS?! We’re not rich, you know!
How did that happen? Well, I was transferring the eggs from the refrigerator to the counter because I was about to begin an impressive and ambitious recipe, a savory cheese souffle, rated as extra difficult from a vintage Julia Child cookbook and…oh har har har! If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn, and you’ll believe anything I say because I can hardly make an omelet.
ME: I’ll make an omelet.
Flips omelet
ME: Okay then, scrambled eggs.
Dropping the eggs was most likely a karmic moment when the universe decided THEN AND THERE to inflict a punishing bitchslap for something I did in the past and probably deserved.
But still, that’s not going to stop me from trying to deflect blame and point out that when your husband eats a staggering amount of eggs, and your town does not allow backyard chicken coops, you make a point to buy a dozen eggs whenever it’s payday or you hit the lottery - I mean stroll through the grocery store to buy the milk or bread and whatever else you forgot to put on your Walmart grocery delivery list that week.
The problem with that strategy is that when you don’t inventory the refrigerator and when the husband is working late for two weeks straight and doesn’t feel like eating eggs when he gets home because he just wants to shower and go to sleep, you end up with a few extra goddamn dozen in the refrigerator with no extra room to be found, especially if you’ve just stocked up on other groceries.
But let’s not dwell on that. Instead, let’s turn our attention to the egg tray. It’s green ceramic with white polka dots and cute as far as egg trays go. It offers storage and slots for 12 eggs and works great if you only load it with a dozen eggs.
The problem arises when you have 24 eggs and try to stuff 12 more eggs into a container designed for half that amount. You’re forced to devise a creative solution by oh-so-carefully stacking the extra eggs in the cute container and then placing that container, brimming with eggs somewhat precariously balanced, into the middle shelf of the refrigerator.
When your egg-eating husband expresses various levels of concern for the stacking setup, you may occasionally issue a warning that vaguely sounds like it could be true, “If you don’t bump the shelf or move the container, the eggs will be fine.”
And they will be fine until you go to the refrigerator to heat leftover spaghetti for lunch, move the egg container so you can reach the spaghetti Tupperware, and the eggs start falling out of their container like marbles in that KER-PLUNK game we played as kids in the 1970s.
Do you remember the last time you had to clean up ONE broken egg and how it was a mucusy mess of clear gloppy yolk, goo, and tiny bits of sticky shell? Multiply that by nine and imagine it splattered all over the refrigerator, struck to drawers, sprayed over the iced tea pitcher, and puddled everywhere. There is no understating of how tedious and gross it was to clean. I may have thrown up a little in my mouth, and I will admit to mentally berating myself and loudly bitching to no one the entire time.
I suppose the moral of this story is never to underestimate the power of human stupidity and remember that when you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes. I’m in no hurry to see another egg, and I’m still weeping over the amount of time I wasted cleaning that gummy, disgusting mess and the staggering amount of money that was smeared inside our refrigerator.
12 eggs fit comfortably.
18 was a stretch but doable.
Forcing 24 was a HELL NO!