A DOZEN EGGS

In all my trips to the grocery store, I never really considered what I would do with my eggs if I ever were to really do what I wanted to do with my eggs.

What would I do with my eggs? I don’t want to cook them. After all, I don’t like eggs. And even if I did cook them, it would be a hollow joy, because it wouldn’t conclude with any sort of eating of eggs. It would just end with trying to figure out what to do with the cooked eggs that I don’t like that I used to not like when they were uncooked eggs.

When I was a little boy, I used to think about eggs a lot. I used to imagine the twelve things that I would do with eggs. Luckily, eggs always came in cartons of twelve, so it always worked out perfectly.

Even eggs, which aren’t round, are perfect. There more of an egg shape, to be sure, but still they are perfect. Sometimes, they are even speckled, a little freckled girl. Or boy, I suppose.

Here’s what I came up with:

1) Throw an egg up, directly over your head, as high as it can go. If it stays up forever, you will be the most amazing person in the world: the man whose eggs never came back, even though you don’t like eggs.

2) Change into a light blue shirt and place an egg in your breast pocket and then smash the egg with the small of your hand and say “I want a divorce” really loud, for an egg is not forever. As a divorcee, you are now permitted to ask to change a dollar for quarters at the convenience store. Quarters are for the Laundromat at your apartment complex.

3) Attend the symphony. Carry an egg in each pocket. When the violinist strikes the crescendo of the cadenza during the concerto, take comfort in the fact that you either married the most wonderful woman in the whole world, or that someday you will marry the most wonderful woman in the whole world. You can’t have it both ways, but that’s a comfort, too. The eggs feel warm against your breast. The eggs think that you are warm. It works both ways. It’s a good marriage.

4) Place an egg on the ground in the soft grass and wait. Someday they are going to build one of those superhighways right here and then the egg will be in danger for the very first time. Although it is possible that they may build it a little bit to the left. Either way, you must live for the present.

5) Have you ever read THE ROVER by Joseph Conrad? He’s a really good writer but THE ROVER is really dull. You don’t see it around much these days. If you do, though, take a small speckled egg and place it midway point of the book. Then smash the cover closed in one quick, vigorous movement. The egg was beautiful, but now it’s not. Now it is like The Rover. I like Joseph Conrad. I just don’t like THE ROVER.

6) Hide from the police. If they say that you appear to be suspicious and ask any questions, don’t answer any of their egg questions. Say: “Whatcha saying? I haven’t seen an egg around here for days.” Make sure to hide the egg carefully in your hip pocket and remember that you hid it there before you take the bus home. Walk backwards when you see the bus coming but not until you see the bus coming.

7) Wash an egg in chlorine bleach and towel dry. When the egg is dry, compare the color and texture of the egg to your memories of being a child in France surrounded by women who worked as escorts at Moulin Rouge during the time of Toulouse-Lautrec and the eggs of course that they cooked for you there. Imagine! A life filled with the eggs of exotic dancers from France!

8) Bite down hard on an egg while receiving a tetanus booster shot from Dr. Lynn after Romeo, the Doberman, bit you on the ankle, right through the pant leg, which is slightly eggshell in color.

9) Examine your own fears. Each time that you find yourself overwhelmed by them, select an egg and throw it up in the air–unless of course, you just dreamed that you had eggs, in your dream, the one about being afraid, maybe of eggs.

10) Sit down like an egg might sit down–rolling back on the balls of your feet, curling your body in a single relaxed motion, rocking back and forth in a pendulum-like motion until your body finally comes to a complete rest. Close your eyes–relax. Don't think about the future, or that car with whatever the hell it is doing and if it is coming towards you or not, whether the driver is bald as an egg and what it must be like to be an egg, or bald.

11) I wish I could remember the name of the man who played “Fred” on the I LOVE LUCY show.

12) I even remember his character’s full name: Fred Mertz. His wife, Ethyl Mertz. And my Father, George, ordering “Ethyl” rather than “Regular” at the filling station. “ETHYL MERTZ!” I screamed. A quick smack to my fanny.

My Father’s straw hat. My Father’s Zippo lighter. My Father’s Lark cigarette.

Fred Mertz. Your character should never be more memorable than you are.

The three most remarkable things are:

1) Fred Mertz’s name.

2) Fred Mertz’s voice, which was gruff yet lovable

3) Fred Mertz’s shape, concealed in part by trousers that reached his sternum, and which in concealment resembled an egg.

The last thing that you should do:

Draw a picture of Fred Mertz on an egg.

The last thing that you should do:

Draw a question mark on the other side of the Fred Mertz egg.

The last thing that you should do:

Place the egg on the floor, and lift your leg high in the air, as though you were going to stomp the egg.

Let the egg be. Enjoy your imagination. Be memorable. Change your name. Walk away.


all artwork, including monsters but not old timey photographs,
® mr. crispy flotilla, 2007