skinny girls & mayonnaise

My 4-year-old daughter Imogen had her 4-year-old pal, Kinley, over to play the other day. They were outside enjoying themselves, when Kinley approached me sheepishly.

Kinley and her egg

“Sean,” she said, “Can we go get eggs from the chicken coop?”

I explained to her that I had, sadly, already gathered the eggs a short while before. But they could certainly go see if any more had been laid. She then went on to explain to me how her 6-year-old brother, Finn, was trying to lay his own egg. I asked their mother, Amber, about this later, and she told me that Finn actually wanted to hatch a chicken from an egg, not lay an egg. I’m not certain if he planned to nest on the egg himself.

“Sean,” Kinley said softly as she was preparing to leave with her mom a little while later. “Can I take an egg home?”

“Even better than that,” I said, handing her a carton. “You can take a whole dozen home!”

She beamed and insisted to her mother that she get to carry the eggs on the short walk home. A little while later, Amber texted. I had expected her to tell me that the eggs had broken. But instead, she informed me that they were not going to be able to eat the eggs because Kinley wanted to wait for them all to turn into chickens.

Kinley’s egg at soccer practice

“She’s going to be waiting a long time,” I replied.

We do, indeed, have a rooster. But he is the lowest rung on the pecking order — a small bantam Chinese silkie we call “Fluffy,” who most definitely is, as you would say, “henpecked.” In other words, we don’t think he’s getting much action.

Amber texted again. They had reached a tenable solution — Kinley would keep one egg and wait for it to hatch. The others would be food. A little bit later, I received a photo of Kinley’s egg at soccer practice, given a spot of safety and honor on a sunflower tablecloth brought in her Pooh backpack just for the purpose.

And finally, later that day, a last text. Disaster had struck:

Fortunately, Kinley was amenable to a replacement egg. Which, as of the last I heard, was safe and well.

I do hope the O’Connor family are able to eat the remainder of the eggs before the next of Kinley’s breaks — and the next, and the next after that — to be continually replaced in a futile hope of a chick-filled future.