An oeuf

I have to admit, I have been taking our chickens for granted. They cackle triumphantly late morning, waddle and scratch around the yard in the evenings, and keep us in eggs. And it takes a brush with a bad egg to remind me of how primally delicious our symbiotic relationship is.

We were house-sitting this winter while our house was being torn apart. A lazy Sunday morning in a house with heat. So, naturally, time for a fry-up. And we scrambled up some of their eggs, the kind that come in a jumbo pack advertised with a slogan like "500 eggs for a buck" or "insanely cheap eggs from unhappy hens" and keep indefinitely in your fridge.

One bite of the squeaky pale eggs made it abundantly clear that we were spoiled--and so were our hens. These were eggs with all the life sucked out of them, eggs that tasted machine-made. No yellow glow, no creamy taste of sunshine and long afternoons. Tabasco didn't cover the taste of assembly-line desperation, and we couldn't finish them.

Now we spend mornings with soft-boiled eggs and laugh that our breakfast comes perfectly formed from our pets.

As W. likes to crow to the more squeamish of our friends while handing them a fresh egg, still warm, "This just came out of her butt!" Often, he gets a quick moue of disgust and the egg handed back as if it were painfully hot, not just still quivering with life. Probably these people insist on a shower before lights-off sex.

And those people we know we are going to love curl their hands around the warm egg and ask for an omelet...