ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, April 8, 1996 TAG: 9604080089
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A5 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Monty S. Leitch
SOURCE: MONTY S. LEITCH
SHE SAYS, ``You're not really going to eat that are you?''
And he says, ``What's wrong with it?''
They're talking about an Easter egg. One of the pink or blue or yellow hard-boiled eggs that the kids dyed Saturday night, and that's still sitting in a ravaged and ragged Easter basket on the kitchen counter.
All the chocolate bunnies are gone, as are all the jelly beans. Except for the black ones, and he doesn't like them either.
So he's standing in the middle of the kitchen floor, calmly peeling an egg.
``That thing's been sitting out since I boiled it Saturday afternoon,'' she says.
And he says, ``So? It looks all right to me.''
``Well, I wouldn't eat it,'' she says.
And he says, ``You don't even like hard-boiled eggs. I wouldn't expect you to eat it. Could you hand me the salt?''
She hands him the salt. But on her face she has one of those expressions that he remembers from his mother. He's seen her look this way at their children, too.
``Don't look at me like that,'' he says.
And she says, ``Like what?''
``Like you're gonna say `I told you so' before there's anything to tell.''
She says, ``I told you so.''
He bites the 2-day-old, hard-boiled egg in half. ``See,'' he says. ``No problem.''
She says, ``The yolk is grey around the edges.''
He says, ``That's just the dye. It probably seeped through.''
She says, ``Please don't let the children see you doing that.''
He says, ``Neither one of them would eat an egg on a bet.'' He downs the second half of his first egg, and reaches for another.
She cries out, ``You're not going to eat another one, are you?''
He says, curtly, ``I'm hungry.''
She sniffs and asks him, ``What do you want me to have them play at your funeral?''
He says, ```The Bunny Hop.'''
``Very funny,'' she tells him.
He finishes off his second egg and wipes his hands on his shirt.
``What's that movie,'' he asks her then, ``where Paul Newman eats about six dozen eggs in one sitting?''
``I don't know,'' she sniffs.
``Sure you do,'' he says. ``It's that one where the guy says `What we have here is a failure to communicate.'''
She says, ``What we have here is a failure to communicate.''
``Listen,'' he says, ``if six dozen eggs didn't hurt Paul Newman, then a couple won't hurt me.''
She says again, ``What we have here ...''
``You know,'' he says, gazing off into space, ``I think the green ones taste a little different than the blue ones. Did you add some flavoring to the dye?''
Monty S. Leitch is a Roanoke Times columnist.
LENGTH: Medium: 64 linesby CNB