As stated in the title, I have become convinced that chicken eggs, in all their various shapes and sizes, unite their many shattered nations with one undying vendetta against yours truly. I have yet to understand the purpose of this animosity, or its source, but there is no longer a doubt in my mind that things have gotten personal.
I first started paying attention to this when I got my own apartment and was living alone for the first time. One fateful day, I decided I would make myself a breakfast of eggs, sunny-side up.
I'd bought the required materials (eggs), greased the pan, and then started the process.
Admittedly, warning bells should have gone off in my head when I tried to crack them. Three tries on the first egg just to pierce the shell, at which point random white fragments interspersed themselves irretrievably from the gooey mass that poured out, and a sharp, quick smack to the second egg, which somehow managed to only partially shatter the shell while being quite effective at piercing the yolk.
As I poured the eggs out, however, I noticed that something was terribly wrong. They weren't sitting still. They weren't piling up into nice little manageable goody-bits. No. These fiends had a plan, and immediately spread their tentacles into every corner of the frying pan, eventually establishing contact with each other and forming a pan-pan alliance to weather even the strongest of spatulas. I was at a loss. This gargantuan, mutant crazy egg had gotten the better of me with its far-reaching white-mixed-with-yolk corruption, and its completely uneven heat distribution.
I made more attempts in the weeks to follow, with varying results... These original martyrs had served as inspiration to their brothers-in-shells, and more eggs valiantly sacrificed themselves upon the altar of weirdly-shaped patterns that are impossible to pick up out of the pan without either losing the yolk or getting your fingers intimately involved. I decided it was time to change tactics.
Setting myself to work in order to study and research my foe, and consulting the wisdom of the world wide web, I settled upon a new plan: Boiling. With no freedom to reach out and enlist the aid and support of their sympathizers, I thought I would be able to control, dominate, and consume them one by one.
Oh, how wrong I was.
The first attempt was a complete disaster. The prisoners were gently lowered into the water, and the process began. As time went on however, I checked back on their progress and discovered that, somehow... The eggs had escaped.
Giant rubbery masses of underwater egg-clouds floated in the roiling depths, and were attacking the very tools I had invested in to deal with their insubordination. I had no choice, but to throw the eggs out with the eggwater and refine my strategies.
Time passed, and the war dragged on. Occasionally, I would garner a victory, or at least something close enough to it that I would pacify my wounded ego, and quiet the rumblings of my stomach with their wounded eggos. But the fighting spirit was not yet dead in these little yellow-bellied bastards. No, not by any means.
With time and practice, I grew more capable of handling them... But as my veterancy in this matter increased, so did the subtlety of their own machinations. Finally, I had managed to bring a boiling experiment through to great success... The only victim, a large breakfast egg, had been hard-boiled to perfection. The white was the perfect consistency, the yolk evenly cooked and without a trace of the gray, sulfurous tint that arises from too long a sentence.
But even this hard-boiled and hard-won victory was marred... For you see, I prefer softboiled.
For a long period thereafter, a ceasefire was called... No eggs would be eaten within the walls of my apartment, and as such no eggs would be there to mock my ability to feed myself. A time of peace settled upon the world.
This too, however, would pass. For only just recently the old vengeances have been recalled to the forefront of my memory, and I set out once again to capture a 12-pack of the fugitive ova.
But, I was to be foiled once again. This new generation, tainted by the war-spawned culture I had inflicted upon their forefathers, were already inherently aware of the processes and maneuvers required to defy my will. The first three eggs, smaller even than those I had crossed cutlery with in the past, were equally as adept at conquering vast swathes of the pan I had placed them in. I should have detected their plans earlier, when one of the shells had cracked beautifully at my careful knock, but the filmy membrane just inside the shell remained strong and prevented any egginess from releasing onto the hot metal of the pan until I'd poked the slimy little git a few times and pinched it open.
Some time later, I shattered the ties binding them to each other and maneuvered each of the three sections onto slices of bread. Taking these morsels back to my chamber of consumption and treating them with the necessary herbs and minerals for completing the ritual, I noticed that although they had indeed been heated for the correct amount of time, the yolks were far too runny. I knew that the instant I bit into one of them, the contents of that sun-colored sack would attempt mass exodus, spilling all over the plate and my own hand. At first I merely attempted to coerce the yolk into sliding around on top of the bread to release the juices prematurely, but under my command. This was an entirely futile endeavor, as the sack merely hung there looking like a dejected water balloon.
But then, an idea... I would flip the egg over, and grind the insolent yolk into the bread itself! This would surely cause it to rupture, only to soak into the carbohydrate goodness beneath, while also spreading out the flavor to reach all corners of the crust. In a fit of triumph, I ordered the action taken, and it was flipped.
The egg, however, maintained thoughts of resistance. The yolk, while runny on top, was firm on the bottom. This prevented it from breaking and spreading properly. However, the membrane did rupture eventually... Only to pour out through an overlooked hole in the slice and onto the plate and remaining slices below.
The second egg, attacked in the conventional manner, performed exactly as I had expected it to... The yolk burst, and a flood of protein oozed out onto the battleground below, mixing with the spattered vitae of the one before it.
But the third egg... Oh, how it deceived me. I attempted my new plan again, flipping the egg over; but this time learning from the mistakes of the past. The result was precise and masterful, a wonderfully smeared layer of tasty goo, covering and soaking into the slice of bread and coating it in the manner I had demanded of it. No holes to release itself in, no remnants to taunt me, just pure submission.
...or so I thought.
I reached down, plucked up the artfully constructed foodstuff, and took a conqueror's mouthful. In my bliss, I was slow to notice the rebellion occurring under my very nose... Too late, far too late, I discovered what treachery had been set in place for me. This final slice of bread, assuredly under command of the egg that lay atop it, had stealthily positioned itself over the fallen lifeblood of the last eggy crusaders, soaking up the spattered, semi-congealed mess and the associated soggy crumbs. In horror, the realization of the ambush that had been prepared for my unwitting hand and fingers dawned upon me; and my heart sank with the shameful notion that, yet again, I had been outwitted by an egg.
I think I think too much.