Okay, so, what’s going on with our eggs?

We eat a lot of eggs in our family. One of the kids loves them one way, the other kid loves them another way, my wife likes them a third way, I can eat them any old way, and I cater (literally) to all their tastes — not because I desperately fawn over them begging for approval, but because my vanity insists I can do four different dishes, and four different toasts, and four different fruit combinations, and four different table settings; and have them all piping hot and ready at the same instant.

When I’ve accomplished that, and everyone is seated and happy, then — and only then — do I revert to a crushed, bent servent standing off to the side, with wide, desperate eyes begging for approval. If I had a chef’s hat, I would be twisting it in my hands.

Ooh. Make that five different dishes. I make one for the dog every day when I make everyone else’s breakfast, and he only likes it one way, scrambled. One might think that dogs would be less picky than people, but that’s another case where “one” would be wrong. Perhaps he was more open to food variety when he was on the streets of Compton before some kind soul picked him up and brought him to the shelter I got him in, but here at Stately Miller Manor he turns his snout up at fried, sunny side up, poached, boiled, hard-boiled — anything. He doesn’t eat it. Then I either have to throw it out and obsess the whole day about what I’ve wasted, or pick it up out of his bowl, wipe off the dog food dust all over it, rinse it in the sink, and eat it myself. I fully admit that both choices are completely loony; but there it is.

He loves scrambled, though (but not too small). I make his separately, one egg, just one egg only, please, Vasily, and serve it to him in the exact same way, placed over (placed, mind, not thrown or shoveled) on exactly the same amount of his regular food, at the exact same time, with the exact same pat on the head and the exact same words. I believe he appreciates this consistancy, although I’m willing to admit that perhaps he appreciates the actual egg more and has no sense at all of who I am or what I’m saying.)

Good Lord, our dogs are as spoiled as we are. Oh, what the heck, right? Why not? We won’t be able to indulge ourselves like this under the coming caliphate, so might as well still have a little more American excess for a while longer, eh? Web sites like this will be capitol offenses, but our children can still tell their kids about the way things used to be. Maybe.

Oh, why be gloomy? Back to eggs.

SO WHAT IN THE WORLD IS GOING ON WITH OUR EGGS?

What is it, two weeks ago, a rumor, then a news report: Thirteen hundred people, then two thousand, sick from Salmonella; no one dead, Thank God, but Salmonella is no joke, and can easily be fatal. (Always struck me as an odd name for a disease. Do salmon get it, too? Does it come from them? If so, does the bacterium jump out of the water like the fish themselves going upstream to, you know, heh-heh, “spawn”? I’ve jumped a few waves myself in service of that noble end) and onto a passing egg truck?

My wife says the disease is on the shells of the eggs, not inside, but I’ve long since stopped trusting her. Just kidding, she says it’s on the outside. But how? Does that mean something occurs in the process of the chicken, er, laying the thing (the thought of which has always revolted me so much I choose never to think of it; like any committee meeting in Washington).

How did anyone ever track it down to those two big farms? Is it just them? Is it the “feed” the way the news said? What does that even mean?

Most important: Is there any way to ever know that the cycle of the scare has passed, or will another few days just go by until some pale, bloodless flack steps up to a podium and says, “The problem is solved. Enjoy your omelettes.”?

One of my kids is off at a ninth-grade orientation at a camp site his school took them to for the weekend. (I know; I don’t have the slightest idea why they’re there, but, as you would be, I’m just THRILLED it gives the tartier ninth-grade girls a chance to hula dance for them in a Forest Primeval, to Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, away from my stern, all-knowing eye.)

Where was I? Ah, yes. He’s coming home tonight with his red badge of courage; my wife is taking the other one in a few minutes to get his school supplies and clothes (we’re as prompt on that as we are on holiday gifts, which we always purchase two minutes before midnight of the appointed day).

And I… I thought that I’d write to you and then pop off to Ralphs with the shopping list that only I can correctly prepare, which has the usual prosaic products — and every four lines, in bold, angry capitol letters, the word “EGGS”.

But I won’t get them, I guess. I know the folks at that store (seriously) as well as I do anyone in my various workplaces, and I trust them, and they’ve already leaned over several times and said, “Hey, we have no idea. They tell us it’s fine, but I don’t know. Crazy thing, that Salmonella.”

Yeah. Crazy.

I wonder if bacteria and viruses will behave any better under Sharia law? Guess we’ll all find out.

REMEMBER: IF YOU WALKED OUT OF BED TODAY AND HAD PLENTY TO EAT AND DIDN’T NEED EGGS, SAY THANKS FOR HOW LUCKY YOU ARE, AND WHEN THE ALL-CLEAR WHISTLE SOUNDS, PICK UP A GIANT PALLETTE OF FARM-FRESH EGGS. JUST TRY NOT TO THINK ABOUT THE THRESHOLD THEY CROSS TO COME INTO THE WORLD.