A popular 1980s school cliché was the assignment of “parenting an egg” as a project. In some schools it was a 5 pound sack of flour. If there was any debate whether it was to be an egg, versus a five pound sack of flour, that debate was settled the minute I darkened the door of my middle school: “Have a klutz like Hilleigh walking around with a sack of flour for two weeks? No way!” So it was to be an egg. A hard boiled one at that. The school needed a yolky, runny mess almost as much as they needed mysterious white powder dusting the halls.

I was in middle school in the heart of the 80s, so I was saddled with this project. This was done, for whatever reason, in home-ec class, which was still a thing in 1987. Our home-ec teacher was this lady called Mrs. R., and she scared the crap out of me. Somewhere along the line, it was somehow decided in the universe that any transgression I would do during school hours would flip an invisible switch. And that invisible switch would cause Mrs. R. to materialize out of the ether in in time to catch me. Her methods of interrogation would put the CIA to shame. Who needs waterboarding when you have Mrs. R?

How it worked was this: We were each given a hard boiled egg to “parent”. We would do this for two weeks, and we would keep a “log”, detailing the “child’s” growth and our “parenting” technique. As 7th graders.

On the day the “egg parenting” was to begin, Mrs. R. would pass out the eggs. She’d sign the bottom of them with her neat, precise signature, so the egg could not be covertly replaced if broken. We were instructed to have an appropriate “bed” for our egg ready. Just a container, really.

Some of the kids really put effort into preparing the “bed. Some kids (or their mothers) sewed tiny cushions for their intricately decorated boxes. One girl had dollhouse furniture, and had created a nursery in a box, complete with a miniture crib, just big enough for the egg. Most of the kids created a comfortable looking “bed” for their egg. Except me.

I brought a peanut can with ripped up newspaper for padding.
Mrs. R. commented on the austerity of my egg’s “bed”: along the lines of “Really, Michael, you couldn’t have put more thought into your new baby’s “bed”?”

“I want it to be tough” I shrugged.

“Not an it. He or she!” Mrs. R. corrected.

OK, I guess by default, my egg was a “he”

You see, in addition to being a recalcitrant and mediocre student, I had a hard time getting into this project. Forming an emotional bond with an egg simply was not in the cards. It was an egg, for god’s sake. It was food! I might have had somewhat of an imagination, but it didn’t extend to this particular project. I don’t think I could have half assed it more if my life depended on it. As you will see.

Next came the naming. What were we going to name our “baby”? Some “Alyssas” floated around, a “Jennifer”, one boy named his egg “Madonna”, three girls got into a fight over which one was going to name their egg “Corey”, and one girl named her egg after a boy in the class she had a crush on, which made him blush.
Me? I didn’t have a name picked out. Gave it no thought.

“Michael! What are you going to name your baby?”

“I dunno,” I shrugged, “Eggo?”

“I’d really like to see more thought and effort!”

“Ok. Eggbert?”

“Fine”, Mrs. R. sighed in exasperation.

So, the rules were this:

We had to keep a log on the day to day activities of our parenting, and our “child”. Every day, we would present our eggs for inspection, for Mrs. R. to make sure it was still intact. If the egg was damaged, she would assign it a disability or illness, and we would have to write in the log of the accommodations and treatments made for it. If the egg was seriously damaged, she would pronounce it dead, and we would have to write in the log of the funeral arrangements we had made.

Mrs R. asked if anybody had any questions. I put my hand up.

“Yes, Michael?” she sighed

“Can we keep it in the fridge?” I asked.

“Would you put a baby in the fridge? And it’s a he or she, not an it!”

At the end of class, Eggbert began his two week stint with the worlds worst, most apathetic, most inattentive “egg parent”. That would be me.

Home-ec was late in the day and I didn’t have any after school activities that day, so Eggbert and his peanut can got stuffed into my backpack, and went onto the noisy, bumpy, smelly school bus with me, full of noisy, bumpy, smelly middle school kids, of whom I was no exception.

When I got home, I showed my mother the egg.

“I have to parent it for two weeks,” I explained.

“Why?” my mother asked

“Because we have to,” I answered.

“It’s an egg,” she observed.

“See, Mrs. R. signed it, so we couldn’t swap it out if we busted it”

My mother, who was a nurse, and a midwife, and had birthed three kids didn’t seem impressed. She suggested I put it in the fridge.

“I can’t” I explained, “Mrs. R said that you wouldn’t put a baby in the fridge”

“But it’s not a baby. It’s an egg!” she insisted.

“What if somebody eats it?” I asked

“What if somebody does? It’s food!”

“Well, that means I would fail my project” I responded.

When my dad came home and learned of the project, he said, “So you are “yolked” with this for two weeks!”

“Haw haw.”

FIRSR LOG ENTRY: Eggbert stayed in bed. My mother wanted to put Eggbert in the fridge, but I wouldn’t let her.

Next day, in home ec, we presented our eggs for inspection. One kid had already managed to break her egg, but had sneakily replaced the egg and forged the signature. The only problem is she had boasted about it earlier in the day, and it had somehow gotten back to Mrs. R.
“It’s a pretty good forgery,” Mrs. R. observed, “If you had kept your mouth shut, I might have been fooled.”
And then failed her for the project.

Most of the other kids had decorated their eggs. Some fashioned hair out of yarn, some swaddled their eggs in home made “blankets”, some kids stuck googly eyes on them.

My egg…. was bald as a boiled egg. And it resembled an egg. Because it was an egg. No clothes, because eggs don’t wear clothes. My egg sat naked and faceless in its peanut can on the wadded newspaper.

“Your child is very expressionless.” Mrs. R observed.

“He’s stoic,” I explained. I had a pretty good vocabulary even back in 7thgrade.

“He would have to be with you as his parent.” She could give pretty good burns.

She pointed out the other, well decorated, well clothed eggs. “Everybody else has given their egg an appearance. Except you!”

“OK.” I said. I took a ballpoint pen, drew two little pinpoint eyes on the egg, and created a ridiculous disproportionate, single line grin.

“Such an effort!” she clapped a slow, sardonic clap.

Next came the sharing of the logs. Each student would read how they parented their “baby”, and describe their parenting skills, challenges and activities. They shared stories of baby clothes, Christenings, well baby doctor visits, and scheduled feedings. One girl set an alarm every two hours to get up and feed her egg. A Jewish kid mentioned his egg had a Bris.

“How the heck do you circumcise an egg???” I asked, without raising my hand.

“Michael!” Mrs. R warned

I pictured how my mother would lop off the top of a hard boiled egg. She did it with a butter knife, with a quick “scalping” motion.

When it was my turn, I read my log entry: “Eggbert stayed in bed. My mother wanted to put Eggbert in the fridge, but I wouldn’t let her.”

“I don’t think you could put less effort into this project if you tried.” Mrs. R noted in disgust.

A couple of days in, teachers were complaining. Turns out they didn’t like the kids bringing the eggs to class. Created a distraction. They were instructing us to put the eggs in our lockers.

The next class, Mrs R. stated “Going forward, we will refer to the “locker” as the “daycare.”

That was fine by me. My egg spent a lot of time in the daycare. The entire school day, in fact. Except home ec, where we had to present our eggs. In fact sometimes it spent the night in daycare too, if I couldn’t be bothered bringing it home.

The other kids in the class, in their logs, wrote stories about finding the perfect child care provider, and described their child’s activities in the daycare, as reported third-hand by an imaginary doting child care provider who, apparently, lived in the dented, brown, sixty year old lockers (aka “daycares’) that lined the hallway of the middle school.

My log entry: “Eggbert spent the day in the daycare”.

“Your child spends a lot of time in day care. Perhaps you should take more of a role in your child’s care!” You had to applaud Mrs. R’s effort in nudging me to take more of an interest in the project, futile as it was.

Then, a minor snafu happened. I got into trouble. I forget what it was; most likely a scuffle with another student, and I was to spend two days in the “SOS Room”. The “SOS Room” was the name given to the in school suspension room at our middle school. It was a bleak, grey little room in the basement of the school, behind the stairs, where the offending student would report at the beginning of the day, and be released at the dismissal of the day. You didn’t attend classes; you just sat in the room. Hence the name “S.O.S” which stood for “Students off Schedule”. By extension, this meant no home-ec.

Did that get me off the hook? Has a bear stopped shitting in the woods? Has the Pope converted to Buddhism? Has wood become unincinerable?

Ha ha. No.

In fact Mrs. R. found out about my impending “SOS Room” stay before home-ec class because of course she did.
“Michael, I understand you will be going to SOS for two days. We will say that you will be going to jail. Your child will need to be taken care of while you are in jail.”

“OK,” I said, ”Well, I have the “daycare”. I’ll just put it in “daycare”.

“He, not it,” she corrected, “And you can’t leave a child in daycare for two days. You can’t bring a child to jail, either. So you will need to find a responsible person to care for your child. And I will expect you will record it in your log.”

When I got home that day, I had to tell my mother about my upcoming stint in SOS. It would be the next two days. Middle School justice was swift. I had to tell her, too. Better she get it from me than from the carbon copy of the disciplinary referral that would come in the mail within the next couple of days.

She was irritated, but not necessarily surprised. By seventh grade, I had plenty of experience with the SOS room, so by that point, the periodical SOS stay was de rigeur. I mentioned the home ec situation with the egg, and stated that I would be keeping the egg home for those two days and took the liberty of appointing my mother as the child care provider.

“It’s polite to ask a person before you tell them they will be caring for your child for two days.” my mother stated.

“It’s just an egg,” I reminded her.

“So why is it not in the fridge?” she asked

“Just don’t eat it, ok”

“It’s been out in the air for six days! I’m not going to eat it!”

I wasn’t convinced.

LOG ENTRY: I am going to jail for two days. My mother will be taking care of Eggbert. I hope she doesn’t eat him.

So I set Eggbert in his peanut can on the desk in my room, and off I went to school to begin my two days in “jail”.

SOS (aka “jail”) was uneventful, and it was a nice respite from the regular classes. I always had the foresight to borrow library books, so I could read after my work was done. It was peaceful, and it was quiet. And I got out of home ec for two days. And did not think once about the egg.

At some point in my second day of SOS, my mother was returning something to my room, and bumped up against the desk. And knocked the peanut can onto the floor. And cracked my egg.

When I returned home, I noticed the peanut can had been hastily put back on the desk, but was not in its original location, so I opened it. And found my egg had been thoroughly cracked. Not just cracked: Irredeemably smashed.

“Mom, did you knock over my egg?” I inquired

“Yes, by accident” she answered, “It was on the edge of your desk. It was very precarious”

“Well you broke my egg!” I then explained that if the egg was cracked, I would be assigned a disability for the egg, or if it was really mangled, I would have to make “funeral arrangements”. It was pretty mangled.

My mother asked to look at the egg. “That’s a dead egg,” she stated

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Yes”, my mother confirmed with finality, “Dead as a doornail. You’ll have to bury it before it stinks up the place”

We had a compost pile, so I “buried” Eggbert in the compost pile.

My dad thought the death of Eggbert was hilarious.

LOG ENTRY: While I was in jail, my mother killed Eggbert but she didn’t eat him. So I buried him in the compost pile before he stunk up the place. RIP Eggbert.

The next day, I reported to home-ec without my egg.

“Where is your baby?” Mrs. R demanded.

“Well, while I was in SOS, my mother knocked it over. So it’s a dead egg. I buried it in the compost pile”

“I make that call, not you!” Mrs. R. said sternly, ”You were supposed to report here with your child, and I would make a decision as to the next step!”

“My mother told me to bury it. She said it would stink up the place.”

Mrs. R. disgustedly read my log entries. “The compost pile? Really? Such a dignified burial.”

“Well, it’ll decompose. Create nice fertile soil. It’ll be completely decayed by summer.”

“God help that poor child,” Mrs. R sighed, as she gave me a generous D+ for my efforts, or lack thereof.

At that point the project ended for me, but most of the other students managed to keep their eggs alive for the duration of the project, being doting parents, and raising healthy, well adjusted eggs. At the conclusion of the project, Mrs. R gave out As, and Bs, and collected the eggs from the kids. One girl looked as though she was going to burst into tears. Mrs. R. may or may not have spared us the visual of unceremoniously tossing the eggs into the garbage, if for no other reason then to preserve the feelings of the sensitive girl who had gotten overly attached to her egg.

Down the hall, however, in the science wing, we had a science teacher who had a boa constrictor. And a litter of white rats was born. Baby white rats are cute. But those white rats had a function, and the function involved the boa constrictor. And students put 2+2 together.

The litter of rats was more than the boa constrictor would be able to eat, and within two weeks, adopting a rat became something of a fad. The school administration became aware of this, and issued the dictum that if you “adopted” a rat, you were to take it home and not bring it back to school. Under no circumstances was that rat to accompany you to class, or it would be turned over the science teacher to be fed to the boa. For a short time, one girl used to attend class with her rat peeking out of the breast pocket of her jeans jacket (I wondered what would happen when the rat “went”, which was a regular occurrence for rats), and that was immediately forbidden. The school did not want the rats getting out and breeding. The school did not want to deal with a white rat infestation.

I did a damn sight better of a job with the rat (who I named Ernie) than that egg! Ernie lived to a ripe old age and grew to be almost a foot long, not counting the tail! And I did not keep a log.