By The Dozen

“Oh, don’t mind Humpty. He’s inhaled a hell of a lot of super-glue.” Bill Willingham

Walking out of the nail salon on Bascom Avenue early this morning, I had to stand in the parking lot and bask in the warmth of the sun. It’s been raining for days, not that I’m complaining, but there is nothing more dazzling than clear blue skies on a crisp morning and the glorious rays of the sun to put a nice spit shine on your day.

This must be a good omen.

We’re heading to Palm Springs tomorrow for what has become an annual tandem biking event. If you remember, last year, I was persecuted by a third of the participants, claiming, She’s Not Pedaling. I going to have to come up with a plan for these deviants. Any ideas?

This year we’re staying at a retro hotel with a kidney-shaped pool in the courtyard, and I figured a ruby-red pedicure would distract people from my bathing suit to my toes, or maybe I just wanted to pamper myself.

As I’m walking pigeon-toed to my car, so I can hold my toes up and not allow anything to mar my fresh pedicure, I overhear two ladies gabbing in the parking lot. Not that I’m eavesdropping, but the tall one with blue acrylic nails says, “you know they have eggs at Lunardi’s. There are only a few dozen left, but you should head over if you need some.”

Screw the toes. I jump in my car and race to Lunardi’s. They are only allowing one dozen eggs per customer, so I lunge for one of the last cartons. Have you ever wondered why you can only buy eggs by the dozen? I found out it was because back in the day, one egg could be sold for a penny and twelve for a shilling, and therefore no change had to be made. It was a business practice. 

Anyhoo, I hold my dozen like a treasure and head to check out, demanding my senior citizen discount. It’s Tuesday, and if you know the price of eggs in California, you’d dye your hair grey just to get the two percent savings. 

I drive home slowly with my fresh loot riding shotgun. Seatbelted in, of course.

Pulling into our driveway, I see Larry has the tandem and a mountain bike out in the driveway for repairs. He’s pumping up the tires, replacing tubs, and whatnot. There’s a smudge of grease on his left cheek. He looks sexy, holding a screwdriver in his mouth, wearing his baseball cap backward.

I hold up the eggs and say, “look what I found.”

“Wow, we’ll have bacon and eggs for dinner!”

“Damn right.”

After carefully placing the eggs on the counter by the back door, next to a wad of cash I withdrew from the ATM for our trip and my cute black purse, I pigeon-toe walk to the sink to put away the clean dishes singing, “It’s just the kind of day to leave myself behind. So gently swaying through the fairy-land of love. If you’ll just come with me and see the beauty of Tuesday afternoon….”

Larry comes in from outside to use the facilities, leaving the garage door open, and I can feel a cool breeze waffle through the kitchen. 

Opening the cupboard wide so I can slip the salad bowl onto this huge lazy susan installed inside our cavernous cupboard. I pigeon-toe it back and forth until I have all the clean dishes properly stored.

I’m just about to unload the silverware bin when I see a strange man standing by the counter next to my precious eggs, just inside the back door. 

Larry rounds the corner at the exact same moment, enters the kitchen, and quickly assesses the dire-looking situation.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I can’t utter a single word, I have panic-induced laryngitis, but I grab a butter knife as if I’m channeling Jack Ryan.

I see the man reach for my eggs just as Larry launches himself into the air as if Haason Reddick, but I accidentally block his move, and we collide to the floor, taking out the cupboard door in the process. The cash on the counter flutters to the floor like flower pedals. Ron Spivey, we’ll be calling you for a repair.

While we’re scrambling around on the floor, the guy tucks those eggs in the crock of his arm like a football and hightails it out to the driveway, jumping on Larry’s mountain bike and riding off before we can untangle ourselves. 

Lenny, Stu, and Ron, I’m letting you know right now, Larry won’t be riding tonight, but he might need a beer. 

And my ruby red pedicure is destroyed before my second cup of coffee.

Okay, the truth is I made that all up at two in the morning when I couldn’t sleep. It’s an imaginative retelling of a crazy dream, as Erin Morgenstern says, you can’t make an egg without breaking a few metaphors. 

What I really want to talk about is the price of eggs. I hope I garnered your attention.

There is an egg crisis in California. For the first time ever, there are no eggs in the grocery stores. The cupboards are bare. It’s unnerving.

From what I understand, the chickens picked up a nasty bird virus, so the farmers had to put down all their chickens, sterilize the facilities and start again. Seems harsh, but apparently, there is no chicken vaccine. It must be too dangerous for the chickens. But after all this mass murder, sometimes the disease comes back, and they have to go through the entire process a second time. 

Ruthless. No chickens, no eggs.

In California, it’s even harder to get eggs because we have a law, thank you, Gavin, that won’t allow our vendors to sell anything but cage-free eggs. This means the chickens must be allowed to run free, socialize, squawk at other chickens, and apparently, their mental health is much better. I’m not sure that has anything to do with their eggs, but happy chickens, happy Californians. 

It is interesting that when we (the human community) were dealing with a nasty virus, no one had any qualms about locking Californians down for two years. Believe me, our mental health was affected.

But I digress.

So when the virus hit the chicken community, California, in particular, was not allowed to import any eggs from farmers who use cages. That would be considered immoral. In the meantime, no bacon and eggs for Cheryl. I’m thinking of switching to duck eggs.

We’re heading out tomorrow for Palm Springs (that part was true), I was going to throw eggs at anyone who accused me of not pedaling, but that won’t be possible. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Drop them in the comments. 

I’m Living in the Gap, squawking about eggs, let’s whip up some comments.

Grow Damn It is now available on Amazon! I’m not kidding. Get one while they last! Or a dozen!

I wonder if I can order duck eggs on Amazon?