Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
Ah. The Hard-Boiled Truth
You never know about a hard-boiled egg, how it’s going to peel, whether the shell will slide off or insist on being picked apart tiny shard by tiny shard. Once, when I volunteered for the morning shift at an overnight winter homeless shelter, I became obsessed with the lack of protein in the breakfast offerings. Cellophane-wrapped raspberry Danish, third-day bagels from the store up the street, bananas curling with their ripeness.
So, I’d go to the quick mart up the street and buy a slew of eggs, enough for each person to start their day with God’s little nutrition gift – a perfectly boiled egg. Eighty eggs. I’d boil them at night, put them in the fridge, and very early in the morning while it was still dark, carry them in the big green plastic bowl that I use to make potato salad for twenty people.
One day when I stepped out to the back parking lot of the shelter, I caught a glimpse of a guy peeling one of my eggs. I felt warm inside, righteous, like I’d single-handedly brought him protein in a sea of day-old carbohydrates. He was studying the egg, peering at it, fussing at it with his fingers, his gloves stuffed under one arm. His warm breath hung in the zero-degree cold. He continued to peel the egg, tiny bit by tiny bit, until he walked over to the trash bin and threw the egg in, threw it hard like he was mad. “Fuck it!” he said and then walked away into the barely light morning.
I wondered if all the eggs were as hard to peel as his. Had I created a sneaky, unpleasant way to remind them life is hard, that helpers’ help is often twisted, well-intentioned but conditional. Surely, some of the eggs would peel easily. I only hoped this. I had no way of knowing.
After that, I learned about the perils of new eggs, how boiled eggs peel better if they are older. I also learned about putting vinegar in the boiling water, so much that my house smelled like the days I dyed Easter eggs in the kitchen with my kids. But from then on, I worried heartily about my boiled eggs when I brought them to the shelter in the morning. It tortured me. My good deed started to torture me, but I didn’t quit boiling eggs and taking them in the green bowl. I would have to live with not knowing if the eggs were horrible to peel or easy to peel. I just had to hope for the best.
Photo by Mustafa Bashari on Unsplash
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Snow Door | wisconsinacademy.org
Listen to Jan read her essay “Billy” presented on WUWM’s Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “At the Breakfast Bar” on WUWM Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “The Parish Hall,” on WUWM Lake Effect
“Fury Cannot Touch Me,” Modern Love, NYT, 9/29/11
Well now, I’ve learned a few new tips today! Eggs are the original superfood, but I do wonder about the first person brave enough to try!