Happy Easter to SOMEBODY!
Today is a holiday…one of the biggies…and you wouldn’t know it from visiting my house. I have no plans, no one to plan anything with and I’m down to my last 5 eggs. I won’t be dieing them because I don’t want to eat 5 hard boiled eggs all by myself.
My kids aren’t here and my siblings are spread out all over the country so I could sit here and feel sorry for myself but I won’t. This Easter may be boring but it couldn’t possibly compare to the disappointment that I suffered on Easter morning of 1966.
The day started out well, I was the only one awake when the sun began to peek over Lake Michigan AND I was the oldest (by implication the smartest) and I was ready to find every egg the Easter Bunny had hidden before the brats even had a chance to find one.
As soon as I woke up, I noticed that something was amiss. There was no basket at the foot of my bed as there had been in years past. I didn’t mind too much, I figured that it had to be somewhere. So, I jumped stealthily out of bed and wandered through the hallway to the bathroom, keeping a watchful eye out for any eggs that might have been hidden in the crocheted toilet paper roll holder that sat on the back of the toilet. It didn’t surprise me that I found none, the Easter Bunny usually confined his egg-hiding tactics to the other side of the house.
As I walked into the living room, I noticed very little evidence of any bunny activity. The light wasn’t good yet because it was rather early, but all I found was my mother sleeping on the couch.
Appalled, I tapped my mother on the shoulder and said, “Mom, the Easter Bunny didn’t come!”
For a moment, mother seemed as shocked as was I. She opened her eyes and looked out the sliding glass doors. I don’t know what I thought she could do about the situation but I didn’t know where to register Easter Bunny complaints and when I was that short, Mommy’s were in charge of pretty much everything so I was sure that my own mother would find the Easter Bunny, wherever he was, and demand that he come to our house immediately.
I was about to be severely disappointed.
Mother shouted, “Shit!” Then she jumped up and said, “Help me hide the eggs…QUICK!”
Can you imagine how my little mind processed that unexpected turn of events? I had to come to terms with the fact that there was, in fact, no Easter Bunny. Not only that, but I had to hide the eggs myself while Mother tended to the Easter Baskets. That was a very vexing day for me and Easter has never been the same since.
Oddly enough, months later my father made that Easter even worse by blaming me for the egg that no one found. It had been stinking up the house for days and as a child, I never made the connection. It was only after an exhaustive sniffing out of the house by a family of 8 that the source of the foul odor was found. I had stuck it in a planter that hung on the wall. In the 60’s they used a lot of fake plants so it’s not like anyone watered it or tended to it. So, that egg just waited to be found through the spring and well into the summer of 1966.
How was that MY fault? It was my fault because I should have “known better than to hide an egg so high off the ground”. After all, how could my 3 year old brother Wayne find an egg that was 3 feet above his head? You know, that kid found a way to run out of the house naked on a regular basis so who would have thought that he wouldn’t be able to find an Easter Egg in a planter 5 feet off the floor?
There are 2 kinds of people in this world…those who hide the eggs and those who find them. I’ve been hiding eggs ever since 1966 and I’m ready to find one…just one. Is that too much to ask? One damn Easter Egg? I don’t even care that I don’t have a ham, an Easter Basket or a bonnet…but the fact that I could look all day and not find one colored egg makes me want to take my 5 eggs and scramble the dickens out of them.
My kids aren’t here and my siblings are spread out all over the country so I could sit here and feel sorry for myself but I won’t. This Easter may be boring but it couldn’t possibly compare to the disappointment that I suffered on Easter morning of 1966.
The day started out well, I was the only one awake when the sun began to peek over Lake Michigan AND I was the oldest (by implication the smartest) and I was ready to find every egg the Easter Bunny had hidden before the brats even had a chance to find one.
As soon as I woke up, I noticed that something was amiss. There was no basket at the foot of my bed as there had been in years past. I didn’t mind too much, I figured that it had to be somewhere. So, I jumped stealthily out of bed and wandered through the hallway to the bathroom, keeping a watchful eye out for any eggs that might have been hidden in the crocheted toilet paper roll holder that sat on the back of the toilet. It didn’t surprise me that I found none, the Easter Bunny usually confined his egg-hiding tactics to the other side of the house.
As I walked into the living room, I noticed very little evidence of any bunny activity. The light wasn’t good yet because it was rather early, but all I found was my mother sleeping on the couch.
Appalled, I tapped my mother on the shoulder and said, “Mom, the Easter Bunny didn’t come!”
For a moment, mother seemed as shocked as was I. She opened her eyes and looked out the sliding glass doors. I don’t know what I thought she could do about the situation but I didn’t know where to register Easter Bunny complaints and when I was that short, Mommy’s were in charge of pretty much everything so I was sure that my own mother would find the Easter Bunny, wherever he was, and demand that he come to our house immediately.
I was about to be severely disappointed.
Mother shouted, “Shit!” Then she jumped up and said, “Help me hide the eggs…QUICK!”
Can you imagine how my little mind processed that unexpected turn of events? I had to come to terms with the fact that there was, in fact, no Easter Bunny. Not only that, but I had to hide the eggs myself while Mother tended to the Easter Baskets. That was a very vexing day for me and Easter has never been the same since.
Oddly enough, months later my father made that Easter even worse by blaming me for the egg that no one found. It had been stinking up the house for days and as a child, I never made the connection. It was only after an exhaustive sniffing out of the house by a family of 8 that the source of the foul odor was found. I had stuck it in a planter that hung on the wall. In the 60’s they used a lot of fake plants so it’s not like anyone watered it or tended to it. So, that egg just waited to be found through the spring and well into the summer of 1966.
How was that MY fault? It was my fault because I should have “known better than to hide an egg so high off the ground”. After all, how could my 3 year old brother Wayne find an egg that was 3 feet above his head? You know, that kid found a way to run out of the house naked on a regular basis so who would have thought that he wouldn’t be able to find an Easter Egg in a planter 5 feet off the floor?
There are 2 kinds of people in this world…those who hide the eggs and those who find them. I’ve been hiding eggs ever since 1966 and I’m ready to find one…just one. Is that too much to ask? One damn Easter Egg? I don’t even care that I don’t have a ham, an Easter Basket or a bonnet…but the fact that I could look all day and not find one colored egg makes me want to take my 5 eggs and scramble the dickens out of them.
posted by Meg Kelso | 5:32 AM
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