Wednesday Story

Once upon a time when I was in middle school, my friend Daniel had to care for an egg baby. You know how Home Ec classes did this by blowing all of the egg out of the shell? This was an elaborate process that involved naming the egg, drawing a little face on it and maybe even clothes, making a shoebox bed for it, and then carrying the shell around for a week as if it were a baby, and if you broke or lost it, you failed the project.

One afternoon on the school bus my friend Barbara and I devised a plan whereby we would kidnap the egg baby and hold it for ransom. I don’t think Daniel was egg baby father of the year, because we had no problem sneaking away the egg and running home from the bus stop with it. We hid it safely in the woods, then wrote him a note saying that he could have it back after he bought us potato logs from the Jiffy store. {That was one of the most white trash lines I’ve ever written. Potato logs were a delicacy of potatoes cut into wedges, battered and seasoned with salty goodness, then deep fried. They were to be eaten with fried chicken, but were fine alone too. My mouth just watered. I daresay I may still eat potato logs if Jiffy stores existed today.}

On with the story. Daniel had a complete meltdown which probably involved tears. He didn’t give a crap about his actual offspring; he just didn’t want to get in trouble for failing the class. In my memory we tortured this poor boy for several hours, writing more notes and giving more clues. I don’t remember ever getting my potato logs. By the time my parents got home from work, we clued them into our big hilarious scheme. My mom had no time for our foolish games, but my dad went into the refrigerator and got out a real egg. He went outside to where Daniel was standing in the backyard and said “here Daniel, I found your egg” and threw it at him. This happened in slow motion and Daniel’s face got whiter and whiter the closer the egg got to him. He caught it in his hand with a yellowy splat and everyone but he had a good laugh.

Yes, we eventually gave him his baby back. We probably even apologized for our evil doings. Through no fault of ours he later ended up cracking the egg and failing the project anyway.

The End