One Egg Forward And Thirteen Eggs Back

I'm having one of those days. You know. Like when your chickens lay 56 eggs per week, and you go to Frig to grab four for some tuna salad and a to-be-served later lettuce salad, and all you can find is ONE egg in a carton built for 18.

OK. That's not quite true. There WAS a lone home-grown egg all by itself. But two other cartons languished on the bottom shelf as well. Store-bought eggs. Of course I had no idea they were there. Because Farmer H has corned the market on shelf space, and I assumed they were full of his tiny bantam eggs that he swears my mom loves, which she really does not care for at all. So, in the face of tuna salad construction, I had a choice of eggs in a carton dated Sell By Jan 12, 2013, or Sell By Apr 16, 2013. I went with Apr. Three eggs. I dutifully boiled them. Perhaps not a good sign was that one cracked and began to exude bubbles and liquid before the water even boiled. I set them to cool in a pan of ice cold well water. Gave myself a relapse of undiagnosed carpal tunnel syndrome by cranking open a large can of tuna with my ancient handheld can opener. Drained the tuna. Chopped an onion. Chopped three dill pickles. Ground some fresh black pepper into the mixture. Cracked my three boiled eggs. Grabbed the first one, the previously cracked one, to peel.

And recoiled from the smell. That was just not right. I put my nose to it. Pheeww! That was one rotten egg. I tried the second one. Shooey! And the third. Aackk! Looks like the tuna salad would be eggless today. I grabbed the eggs and shells and threw them off the back porch, right beside the ten white eggs I had tossed from the Jan. carton. I mixed in the mayonnaise, stirred, took a taste, and sealed up my tuna salad for later enjoyment.

I pulled the sheets and pillowcases out of the dryer and headed for the bedroom. Who knew that Farmer H is so hard on bed linens? He must sweat pure motor oil from his pores. His pillowcases have a texture that cannot be described. His side of the fitted sheet looks as if he tried to start a fire by rubbing his heels on it. Look for the visual in the dictionary, right beside threadbare.

The shower was calling, but not before being interrupted by L'Oreal, who blurted that I simply must do something about my fading youthful appearance. Wouldn't you know that a glob of coloring gel would drip onto my upper lip? A place I had not slathered with liquid soap to act as a repellant. I quickly dabbed at it with a towel and made a mental note to come back to that area with soap. No need to look like Mr. Pitt at his Moland Springs merger speech.

When I emerged 45 minutes later, I found a large candle the size of one of those citronella backyard thingies burning on the kitchen cutting block. Not that we have a cutting block in any other room, mind you. Since The Pony spent the night at Grandma's, and the #1 son had not yet arisen at 10:15 when I got in the shower, I went to seek the firestarter. But first I grabbed the bag of bathroom trash and wedged it in the already full tall kitchen bag, noosing it up with its blue loopy tie straps. That's not really my job. But somebody needed to take out the trash.

Sealed in his room like a ne'er-do-well dormitory denizen was #1. He admitted to starting that candle. Even though he had a blueberry muffin concoction burning in his room. "I got up and almost threw up. The smell in the living room was terrible. It was tuna. That tuna salad you made is making me sick! I found that candle and lit it. It's almost bearable now."

"I think you must be referring to those rotten eggs I boiled and threw off the porch. All you had to do to get rid of the tuna smell was bag up the trash and take it out. The can was sitting right on top."

"I didn't know that. All I did was smell it and get the candle."

There are good liars, there are bad liars, and there is the #1 son. How did he know about the tuna salad in a clear container in Frig if he never went in the kitchen except to place a candle. "Go take it out now, then. I bagged it up for you already."

After a brief discussion of how he forgot to take the dumpster up to the end of the driveway yesterday like I commanded, and his dad did it for him last night and sent him a mean text, #1 grabbed the bag of trash and sashayed out the front door. Ha ha. The dumpster was at the end of the driveway. He had to walk all the way up and get it before he could get rid of the trash bag.

Come to think of it, the day is shaping up nicely now.