You'll be sorry

My brother will kill me, but I have to spill it.  After all these years, I told my family. Now I shall share it with you, my friends and fellow bloggers and fans: WHY I hate eggs.


I was young.  We still lived in town so it was before I was in third grade. My brother and I were messing around and searching the house for "buried treasure" or something childish like that. Did I mention the time of year? Summer. Mid summer.


We found it all right. An Easter egg, beautifully dipped and perfectly forgotten in a small dark too-well- planned hiding spot. Now go and re-read when we found this. 


We proudly dashed up the stairs to show my mother "LOOK WHAT WEEEEEEEEE FOUUUUUUUND!" juggling from hand to hand and sibling to sibling. My mother's jaw dropped and her nose pinched all the way up between her eyes. 


"EWWWWWW! Where?"


"In the basement!"


"Good LORD Throw it away."


"Awwwww Can't we play with it?


"Play WHAT with it?NO!" She still had a look that crossed between horror (if we dropped it) and disgust (that we wanted to DO something with it)


"PLEAAAAAASE?"


"You're gross. Take it OUTside!" and she shook her head "You'll be sorry. That is one bomb you don't want to go off."


We scampered outside yelling at each other: "Be CAREFUL for "Jiminy Crickets" and "let ME hold it" "Mom said it was a BOMB"


It was my brother who thought of the game.


Said egg or "bomb" was placed in the grass at the side of the house (We didn't want to share our good new "toy" with ANYONE) We both had to back up and then at the word GO my brother would (demonstrate) run up, straddle the egg, squat and touch the ground and run home to smack the other runner who would repeat said act until....Armageddon occurred.  


I remember clapping and laughing at his GENIUS. "YES!" I cheered.


"Go." and he did.


Then I did.


And we did this for almost twenty minutes laughing until we thought we'd pee in our pants.  But this kind of fun doesn't last forever.


I'm the one who detonated the bomb. I will confess right here and now, that the smell was one I will never forget. My eyes widened in terror and began to water.  I pulled my collar up over my nose but it was too late. The poison had set in. My stomach lurched and I threw up in the bushes.  Sulfur? No. Rotten decayed sulfur, baked in the sun with rotten vegetation and proteins for MONTHS.


My brother wanted to continue the game and had not realized the severity of the stink. You know how in movies that green, snaky smog that represents a bad smell? It exists. Oh yes. I have seen it with mine own eyes. Then? what did he do? He picked it up and smooshed in in my face. This only facilitated my newly reversed digestive tract. The vile stench threw me on all fours and left me heaving and gagging.  He laughed even harder.  


I was mad. Furious. I spat one last time and reared up on my haunches with the now famous "look" of "YOU have gone too far.  It is too late to save yourself now" I scanned the yard for my weapon and swiped my hand across my mouth removing the last bits of sick and rotted egg.  My brother began to run back toward the house, to Mother and safety.  I grabbed my chosen method of retaliation and took off.  Even then, I was a fast runner.  I caught him and though I could NOT bring him down I could jump on his back with my own "bomb".


Dog poop.


And I want to tell you that I rubbed it in his hair and down his clothes with all the strength I had. I gritted my teeth and I'm sure I was growling like a lynx on the hunt. He was screaming and swinging. I was all but foaming at the mouth and gnawing his face off. He was spinning around trying to get me off.  We were our own tornado.


My mother bolted out of the house and yanked us apart.  Then she dropped us and gagged. Poop and rotten eggs. Those were her children.  Without a word, she pointed.  Defeated and angry we walked side by side, pinching and punching each other alllllll the way to the hose.  


I don't care WHAT time of year it is. Hose water is cold.  She turned it on FULL blast and with every drop she would yell "Don't MOVE~ This is AWFUL! YOU STINK! GOOD GOD!" Once reasonably soaked and cleaned off, we were ordered in to the house both crying by now and pink from water pressure where we were ceremoniously dunked in the tub and scrubbed. 


My jammies hurt. My belly hurt. But I knew one thing: she was right.


I WAS sorry.

Happy Easter to one and all. I hope you enjoyed your few minutes with me. I know I did. Thank you for thinking of me and stopping by. See you soon.