Egg Zackley

First a reminder that this months Portrait of Words writing challenge stories are scheduled to be posted this coming Mon-Wed, Oct 13-15. Guess that means I better get my butt in gear and get my own story done! Ahaaaa, procrastination, how I love thee, let me count the ways... Hope to see some of you all joining in again this month.

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*Parental Warning*
No you don't have to rush the little ones out of the room just yet. This warning is for my parent...my mom - Psycho Mom. The following is a true account of your dear sweet, albeit mischievous little boy.

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After reading this post by Sandi, I immediately remembered spending a summer afternoon many, many years ago with one of my very best childhood friends, Chris Smith. (ya, that really is his name)

He and I were running out of things to keep us occupied and boredom had set in. The hundreds of games of Monopoly, Risk, Dungeons and Dragons, and Rail Baron as well as countless others had effectively run there course. We were pretty much board game freaks back then, spending hours and hours rolling dice and moving game pieces around their paths. Well, even the best designed games eventually lose their excitement and apparently this was one of these times.

We were frantically searching for something to occupy our insatiable appetite for entertainment when the light bulb went on. We started to formulate a well thought out strategy. (or so we thought) Little did we know that spontaneity would rule the day.

The plan was quite simple. There was a supermarket, Albertson's I think, about a half a mile away, where in the corner of the dairy case we would find our prize. Perhaps "our ammunition" would be a more accurate description. You see, what we'd decided to do was a good old fashioned egging.

OK, go ahead and get it out of your system. "Jeff, how could you do such a thing?" or "Jeff you ornery little turd!" There, feel better? . . . no not yet. Alright try this, "You should be ashamed of yourself you mean and dastardly little shit!" There, that should about cover it. Now let's get back to the story shall we?

Next we had to muster up the courage to walk into the store and purchase the eggs. No big deal right? Maybe not, but let me ask you, how many twelve year old boys, two at a time, walk into a store in the middle of summer without an adult present and buy four dozen eggs?

You'd think we were planning some sort of enormous bank heist with all the tactical maneuvers we prepared. Proceed to the dairy case and discretely obtain the contraband. Now in complete stealth mode, navigate the isles avoiding anybody who might recognize us. Once up front we would have to carefully select just the right cashier. By no means could the person behind the black rolling conveyor belt have any previous knowledge of who either of us were. God what we would have done for one of those self-serve check out stations like they have today.

Finally we had made our selection and hoped beyond hope that she would prove to be an ally and not rat us out. I remember walking up to the counter with my buddy and placing all forty-eight of our neatly packaged chicken embryos onto the platform. We watched as they inched their way towards the checker, and then it happened. I did the unthinkable. I looked at the lady directly in her eyes! It was at that very moment that I knew that she knew that I knew, that we'd been caught!

Chris and I then looked at each other and immediately knew that lights and sirens were about to go off and that security was going to come rushing in to hall us off into a back room to begin the interrogation process. Our mothers had probably already been notified somehow. This was going to be on our permanent record wasn't it? No college would ever take us now. Yes, this would mark the beginning of the end of life as we knew it.

Instead, she smiled, said something clever like, "Making an egg salad?" and then took our money.

Whew! We were safely outside the store with our loot and as best as we could tell, there were no FBI agents following us. It was now time to head back to Chris's house and find a place to stash the eggs until later that night when we would sneak out and wreak havoc on our unsuspecting prey.

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There was a large field between the supermarket and Chris's place, probably about a five minute walk from one side to the other. Nothing but rocks, sand and scrub brush at first glance. Pretty typical for this desert area in a town near Palm Springs. On closer inspection there were plenty of lizards to chase, jack rabbits to scare and road runners to watch zip from one spot to the next. There was also of course, the ever present danger of a rattle snake lurking in the shadows, so we were sure to keep our ears tuned in for any hint of hissing or rattling sounds.

Sure enough, about half way across the field I heard it. Something was coming at me and I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up! But wait, there was something different about this particular sound. It wasn't coming from the direction of the warm sand like I had expected. No, it was more like something cutting through the air, and before it hit me as to what it was, it really did hit me. . . right square in the back! I instantly spun around only to see another projectile heading straight for me like an incoming SCUD missile. Before I could react, I took a direct hit to the torso. SPLAT! the second egg hit me perfectly centered in the breastplate. About twenty feet away was my buddy with one of the biggest shit eating grins I've ever seen.

I quickly set my grocery bag down and frantically reached for my own eggrenades. By the time I could fire off my first shot, I had already been hit three or four times. For the next several minutes it was all out war as we hurled our mucus like packed bombs at one another. Each time we made contact we would simultaneously yell out, "Ohhhhh...!" and break out into another fit of laughter.

There were clearly no winners or losers on the battlefield that day. Oh, I suppose you could say that we both lost, because by the end of our melee each of us was covered from head to toe in slime along with bits of shell stuck to various parts of our body. But then again, if you're one of those "glass half full" types then you could say we both won. I mean how could you not call an afternoon in which we laughed, giggled and carried on like the couple of twelve-year-olds that we were anything but a winner?

Yes our original intentions were anything but pure, but somehow the whole thing got turned around into something where no one got hurt, especially the innocent bystanders.

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The only thing left to do now was to figure out how we were going to get back to Chris's house and get our sticky-gooey clothes cleaned up and dried without getting caught. I quite honestly don't remember how we managed that part of the puzzle, but I do know we succeeded.

So if there's a lesson to this story it would be this: The next time you gaze at that halo shinning so brilliantly above your child's head, you may want to run a comb through their hair to see if there are any horns sprouting up!