The Hunt.
My mother has a monopoly on holidays. Over the last few years, she’s been slowly accruing the rights to host large family events at our house. She swindled Christmas away from my grandmother, claiming that our home was the only one big enough to accommodate “five
Traditionally, Easter has been held on my Grandma and Grandpa Miles’ farm in Round Hill, but with my grandma fresh out of surgery (something involving gallbladders, throat tubes, and urination…I tried not to ask too many questions) we decided to hold festivities at my parents’ house. I could sense that my grandma was uneasy about giving up her Easter glory, so my brothers and I brainstormed ways to ease the transition for her. Immediately, we thought of one of her most cherished traditions – the annual Easter Egg Hunt. Every year since I could remember, Grandma littered her yard with Easter eggs, mismatched, Scotch taped shut, and filled with mixtures of jelly beans and pennies. It wasn’t uncommon to come back with two or three eggs filled with nothing but a faded Hershey kiss wrapper and several dead insects. These were the eggs we had missed the year before. My grandmother continued to orchestrate it even after her arthritis started getting bad, although her hiding spots became slightly less inventive. Instead of concealing eggs inside bird feeders or dangling them from wind chimes, grandma took to hiding them in, for example, a small pile in the passenger seat of her car. But even still, we ate those hard jelly beans and liked it, because that’s what Easter was about. Dammit.
So this year my brothers and I proposed that we continue the annual Egg Hunt at our house, and my mother acquiesced. Early Easter afternoon, she brought down several groceries bags and dropped them in front of the three of us. We peered inside and saw mounds of candy and brightly colored plastic eggs – the good kind too. None of the cheap shit. “Have at it, boys,” mom said.
“Woah woah woah,” I told her, “This sounds like woman’s work.”
She eyed me up and smirked. Point; mother.
“But I’m drinking beer,” Matt said. “You can see the predicament I’m in.”
She left us with the eggs without saying anymore, and we all knew that we had lost. I looked around the room for people I could recruit to take my place. I saw my younger cousin Tatum (with whom I know little about) walking towards the table, so I shouted out to her, “Hey Tatum, do you still believe in the Easter Bunny?”
“I’m 12.” She said. Or maybe she said she was 9. I don’t know, I’m a bad cousin, but the inflection in her voice told me she did not.
“Well then help us with these eggs.” I told her. She pulled up a chair and happily started filling the plastic eggs with Skittles and mini chocolate bars. T.J. convinced his wife Heidi to join, and pretty soon we had a gaggle of women surrounding us, all stuffing eggs. I knew that this was woman’s work.
I sat there listening to the family chitter-chatter as I blindly filled up eggs, but I soon was lost in thought. Every year, same old Egg Hunt. Where’s the challenge? Where’s the fun? You find an egg, you win. That’s so expected. It’s so boring. You know what, life isn’t about having eggs laid out for you, always filled with candy. Did
With an empty egg in hand, I walked over to a vegetable platter my mother had put out and shoved two or three pieces of celery into it. I fought back the laughter, picturing the look of disappointment on the small child’s face as he or she opens the egg, expecting candy but instead looking at raw vegetables.
It was about this time when I noticed Matt digging through the fridge. He turned around with a guilty look on his face. He looked at me and I looked at him. I then looked down at his hands. He was shoving diced carrots into his egg. We pointed at each other and started laughing. Twinsies.
As the women filled eggs with candy at the kitchen table, Matt and I started going through the pantry. I filled an egg with raisins as Matt filled one with Special K. I filled one with French fried onions, and Matt filled one with potatoes flakes.
We stopped when we heard someone approaching behind us. It was T.J., and he was shaking his head. “You guys are sick,” he said. We all looked at each other awkwardly for a second, and then T.J. reached behind us and put a handful of beef bullion cubes into an egg.
The three of us moved through the kitchen, finding other things to put into the “loser eggs”. T.J. filled one with paper clips. Matt filled one with shrimp. I took a post-it note and wrote “Jesus loves you” on it put it into an egg. I took another post-it and wrote “Jesus does not love you, play again.” Matt laughed. “You go too far…” he said as he grabbed the egg and mixed it with the rest.
It was then time to hide the eggs. Tatum and Heidi shared a bag, and placed them in easy to find spots across the lawn. My brothers and I agreed that we would hide our eggs in slightly more challenging locations.
T.J. wedged one under the wheel of our SUV. Matt placed one inside the raccoon trap my father has set up in the back yard. I placed one on top of the barbecue grill, which my dad was using to grill a leg of lamb (however, my mother moved it when the plastic started melting).
Matt put some atop a lily pad in the center of our pond, T.J. wedged two in between a garden gargoyle’s legs to give the allusion of testicles, and neighbors watched in horror as I placed two eggs in the middle of the street. T.J. yelled from across the lawn “Chris! What are you thinking!?” I thought to myself that perhaps he was right. Maybe this was going too far
“Don’t put two eggs in the middle of the street,” he continued. “Save some for the thorn bush!”
Having scattered all the eggs, we walked triumphantly back inside. My mother asked us how it turned out. Matt told her “This year’s theme is ‘the most dangerous game’”
I dipped my fingers in the lamb drippings and smeared it under each eye, and in a low voice I grunted “The hunt…..is on.”
My brothers and I waited with anticipation for the hunt to begin. It was going to be sick and awesome and we couldn’t wait. But we did. We waited and waited and waited. Finally I asked my grandmother “when are we going to do the Easter Egg hunt?” Matt, remembering his shrimp egg, added “time is of the essence.”
“Easter egg hunt?” she responded. She looked surprised. “Your youngest cousin here is Tatum, and she’s twelve (or nine). Didn’t you notice that there weren’t any kids here young enough to want to hunt for eggs?”
My brothers and I stared at each other, jaws wide open. Strangely, we had not.
“What…about…Sadie’s…kids?” Matt stuttered.
“They’re not they’re not coming.” Grandma told us.
“Then why did you help us fill up the Easter eggs?” I asked. “Why didn’t you stop us?”
“I thought it was funny.” Point; grandma. She looked at us, all standing there in shock, and started to laugh as she walked away.
And I’m pretty sure I heard her mutter “Easter is mine bitches.”
