The Urge

Found here

When I was a young kid, our family friends lived about six miles from us on a sheep farm. They owned an enormous, four-story house with a ton of fireplaces in it, about six bathrooms to choose from, an old-fashioned dumb waiter on rope pulleys, and an attic full of antique dresses, complete with bustle and button top shoes. We loved going to their house. Nancy was close to my age and she initiated me into really fun farm activities. Because we lived in suburbia, I didn't know the first thing about laying on the backs of sheep while they were eating their supper out of the feeding trough. I had no idea of how tricky it was to go into the henhouse and gather eggs out from under testy hens. Only my father, who had had a pet rooster when he was a boy, knew that hens, chickens and geese can demonstrate affection for humans. Yes, Nancy's mother had big fat, white goose whom she named Chitty-chitty-bang-bang. He was called Chitty for short, a name which made a number of people pause as what his name wasn't, sunk into their minds. Chitty could be pretty mean. I remember being poked by his beak once when I didn't move out of his way fast enough. But Chitty loved Mrs. K. In fact, he lived to be nearly two decades old and one of his last gestures was a gentle whinny while he rubbed his cheek softly against Nancy's mother's face. I felt sick at heart when Chitty died.

Our parents wanted us to learn about the facts of life in a natural setting. So I remember several midnight phone calls from Nancy's mother: "One of the sheep is in labor. Come on over." We'd all tumble out of bed, put on our warm clothes, and go over to stand in the barn for an hour or so while we watched ewes struggle through childbirth. Gooey little, bleeting lambs slid into the world and took their first wobbly steps. We'd ooh and aah while Mrs. K checked the ewe and made sure she and baby were fine. She loved explaining everything to us through the entire process: why she'd have to put her hand up inside the ewe and turn the baby around, what to do when the cord was around the lamb's neck, etc. After the baby began nursing, we would traipse back to our car in the freezing cold, and drive home, happy for new life and the recurring miracle of birth.

But perhaps one of the most exhilirating things I remember from our many hours on Nancy's farm, was a typically illicit act that we were given permission to do. It was the rotten eggs. Mrs. K. kept a five-gallon bucket somewhere in the barnyard where the odd and abandoned egg was placed. If she happened across a clutch of eggs out in the woods that had been left and were of questionable age, into the bucket they went. After they reached a critical mass, Nancy and I were given permission to go destroy them. It excited us both. Off to the broken down barn wall off in the woods we'd go with our five-gallon bucket. We'd climb up onto a crumbling stone wall and settle down in a comfortable position, the bucket perched between us. Then it would be a contest to see who could hurl the egg with the greatest force into the old barn wall, about 20 feet away from us. Rotten eggs don't smash on a wall, they explode. And my goodness, they reek! That was really fun for kids to do--throw rotten eggs as hard as we could and watch the gooey gold-green-brown spatter in all directions. Then as the wind shifted, we'd groan and jump off the wall to get out of the sulfuric cloud of stench.

There are days when I wish I had a bucket of rotten eggs now, as an adult. As a child, it was only license to be reckless and waste potential food items in a sanctioned manner. But now, it would relieve such frustration and give me incredible pleasure to hurl rotten eggs on say, a public building, or the side of a bus. Wouldn't it be fun to watch brown shelled yucky eggs explode, brown-yellow yolk splashing in all directions upon impact? Then watching people draw back from the sickening cloud of malevolent effluvium (what a marvelous phrase...). I think it would be terrific fun for example, to hide in a park and from time to time, throw a rotten egg near a group of people, having it explode into a tree or rock. As the stink wafts toward people at picnic tables and on blankets, observing the shock and revulsion on their faces.

Yes, I am a closet rotten egg thrower. Few things in my young life can compare with those wonderful experiences. I have pushed my Id into place where it won't be allowed to have me throw eggs. But from time to time I can't help but fantasize about what it would be like...

Can you eat that egg?
If not sure you ought-ter,

then place it in water.

If it lies on its side,

then it's fresh; eat with pride.
After three or four days,

at an angle it lays.

But, it still is a treat, so go on and eat.
Ten days, stands on end,

in your baking 'twill blend.

'Cause it's definitely edible,

in your baking, incredible.
But, if it floats on the surface,

that egg serves no purpose.

'Cause a floater's a stinker!

Out the back door best fling 'er!