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Thursday, March 20, 2008

Seek Not

Spring is a glorious time of days filled with sparkling sunshine, blooming flowers, and flooded basements. I know it’s spring when the sewer backs up and the toilet overflows like a baby with a double mouthful of strained peas.

I’m looking for the day when the first flush of spring brings added surprises. The plumber marks his annual trip out to my house on his calendar right next to “Order New Mercedes.”

About the only thing I hate worse than that first flush is the annual Easter egg hunt at the farm. This year, Easter comes at the end of March, so it’s possible that the two events may coincide, much like a slingshot-launched rock and a plate glass window, only in this case the thing that gets launched is a good deal less desirable as a projectile than a rock.

I’m just as helpless at the egg hunt as I am in cases of explosive plumbing malfunctions. And to make matters worse, now that Easter is rolling around like the last jelly bean in the bowl, I’m running out of ways to disguise my nonconformity, which is like trying to disguise one of the white keys on a jazz piano.

I’m seek-challenged. I couldn’t find the spots on a ladybug without a field guide and a labeled specimen. If it were up to me, all the hidden eggs would find a home in the wild.

I can hide eggs. I’m the one that thought of putting the cracked one under the seat of the car when we were kids. It’s still there. I’m anticipating an ugly phone call from Mom any day. Reminder to self: Sign up for caller ID.

But when it comes to finding eggs, I can scramble around all day and come up with nothing but an empty basket. Especially now that I’m at the stage of life where every morning starts off with a hunt. As I get older—I won’t say mature as that can lead to lawsuits from the false advertising people—I couldn’t find a lost thought with an All Points Bulletin and a Vulcan mind meld. I haven’t been able to locate my belly button since the baby, and I wouldn’t recognize my own knees in a police lineup. Note to self: Order high school graduation announcements for the baby.

When I was a kid, the Easter Bunny used to hide “pity eggs” out in plain sight to make sure I could find them. He could have dyed them neon colors, dotted them with iridescent sequins, and implanted them with a tracking device that emitted a sound that would shatter Plexiglas, and I would still wander from shrub to shrub saying, “Am I hot? Give me a hint.”

Last weekend, while rearranging furniture in an attempt to find my glasses, my teenaged son discovered a plastic egg in one of the nooks in my desk. Inside was a tiny chocolate bar huddled in a faded wrapper.

“Look! It’s one of last year’s Easter Eggs we never found!”

That does it. I’m through with egg hunts. I don’t care if I never see my navel again, but if my chocolate detector is lost, I’ve got nothing left to dye for.

2 comments:

Dawn said...

This has got to be related to your lack of a sense of direction!

I have the same problem...Easter egg hunts used to be so frustrating for me!

Amy Mullis said...

Omigosh--what if the Easter Bunny left compass directions, like go North twenty paces?! I'd still be wandering around the back yard looking for moss on the sides of trees.