By: Angela Gillaspie © April 2002-2010

There is an evil presence in my home. As soon as you walk in my front door, you are confronted with an odor that crinkles your nose and forces you to ask, "Is the plumbing backed up?"

With the Easter holiday comes reverence, thankfulness, and hardboiled eggs. I’m not sure what colored eggs have to do with the resurrection, but it is probably a conspiracy of the National Egg Board.

Anyway, I view Easter with a split personality: part recognition for Christ’s sacrifice and part childlike glee. It thrills me to no end to share the story of my Savior’s love and then to boil, color, hide, and eat Easter eggs with my family. Let me clarify that *I* don’t eat the eggs - my family does.

I think boiled eggs are smelly, rubbery, and disgusting, but for some reason my family loves them. They like to eat them plain, deviled, sliced up on salad, and chopped up as egg salad. So being the loving mom that I am, once a year I boil two or three dozen eggs so my family can get their fill of the jiggly white globs.

The kids decorate these eggs with all colors of the rainbow, drawing flowers, ducks, crosses, and the words "Josh is a gubur" with the magic crayon. I love to listen to the deep egg discussions from the kids. Here's an example.

Child 1: "Judas was mean to Jesus, is he the one that hid the eggs?"

Child 2: "No. Judas had the devil in him and wanted money and that's why he kissed Jesus in front of the bad guys, you dufus!"

Child 4: "Doofs!"

Child 3: "Nuh huh, you're both wrong! Judas didn't hide the eggs; there were no eggs. They just had wine and crackers."

Child 1: "Where were the eggs?"

Child 2: "Judas ate them all - he was mean. He needed the money to buy more eggs."

Child 3: "THERE WASN'T ANY EGGS!"

Child 4: (shrieking sounds) "Doof!"

Child 1: "Jesus died for me. Poor Jesus, there wasn't no eggs for Him."

Child 2: "Momma? Did they color eggs blue back then?"

Child 3: "They didn't have eggs back then. It was against the law."

While the kids fight over Judas and the blue eggs, Daddy and I usually sneak off to hide the remaining eggs. Next, the kids romp outside and pluck the eggs from their hiding places. Inevitably, there will be one or two eggs that no one can find - even Mommy and Daddy can't remember where they hid them. Usually by early May we'll be able to smell the lost eggs from their hiding places.

After the egg search and rescue mission, I'm faced with finding uses for 20 or so hardboiled multicolored and slightly cracked eggs. Joy. I rub Vick's Vapor-rub under my nose so that I can't smell that delightful funky hardboiled egg stench and I get to work making a bazillion deviled eggs.

I double wrap the demonized eggs and put them in the fridge and over the next two days they slowly disappear. The good news is that they are finally consumed and I won't have another devilish egg encounter until next year, but the bad news is that the demon eggs have left behind a ghost. This diabolic entity takes over my refrigerator permeating my cheese, deli meat, celery, and even milk with the essence of boiled egg. Even my ice is possessed making my lemonade carry the rank twang of egg. Fortunately after a week, the evil eggy spirit moves on.

Although I don't care for boiled eggs, I take pleasure in celebrating Easter. The small price I pay with my egg-haunted kitchen is worth the reward of watching my kids decorating, finding, and then eating the eggs and it's nothing compared to the great sacrifice God made for me.

Stay tuned for more SouthernAngel's smelly stories!