Natalie Whatley

I’d like to know what’s in your Easter basket. Allow me to eggs-plain. Easter-basket favorites eggs-pose personality traits. If you’re off on an eggs-cursion to hide yours, please don’t eggs-clude yourself from the fun. Don’t have an Easter basket?  Get one, or for entertainment’s sake pretend one eggs-ists and eggs-amine its contents before reading further. Determine which item you like best, and I’ll eggs-plore your psyche. It’ll be egg-citing!

Are jelly beans eggs-emplary in your opinion? Your hard eggs-terior shell houses firm but sugary resolve. If you like run-of-the-mill beans, you’re an unfussy, simple sort –easy to please and easy going.  If eggs-otic gourmet flavors fall more in line with your eggs-pectations, you enjoy the eggs-travagant things. But, if you’re one of those who uses the “recipes” on the back of the bag to create eggs-orbitant concoctions for your discerning palate: well, there’s an old coffee-shop joke about how you can tell how big of a pain in the backside someone is by how many descriptive words it takes to make the order. Same goes for you if the taste you eggs-pect involves mixing more than two beans. Do you ask the family to gather the black-licorice ones and save them for you?  You eggs-hibit math-book-like qualities  . . . you got problems! Those are eggs-tremely yucky!

Like chocolate bunnies?  White chocolate variety?  While it appears you’re an eggs-alted one, you’re actually quite the renegade because white chocolate is not chocolate at all. Milk chocolate bunny?  You eggs-ude sweet, smooth ways while being somewhat of a conformist eggs-ample.  Dark chocolate? It’s all the eggs-tolled health rage right now. You’re probably a smug health nut who eggs-ercises and makes others feel guilty for eggs-posing their bodies to the more impure forms. But here’s the real eggs-amination: Do you bite off the ears first? Freud would say you feel as if others don’t really hear you eggs-press yourself. Then there’s the question of hollow versus solid. Those eggs-pound on themselves. Where else could you get such, ineggs-pensive, eggs-pert psycho-analysis?

People who like Peeps egg-cel on a psychological level, but are a little fluffy in the head. And since eating those cause eggs-treme sugar concentrations in your blood, mosquitoes are eggs-hilarated by you. (Buy some Peeps on clearance after Easter and feed them to everyone else at this summer’s family barbecue. The bugs will eggs-clude your less-sweet offering.)

This year, I saw edible Easter grass in stores.  If you’re enjoying some of that (and I can’t imagine it tastes any better than the real thing), then I can only eggs-trapolate that you have a deep-seated desire to eggs-ist in the bovine realm. Moo!

If robin’s eggs are eggs-actly what you crave, you look tough on the outside, but crumble to powder when another human eggs-acts pressure.

Real, hard-boiled eggs or plastic? Ornate dye jobs or a quick dunk? Decals or no? Weird sayings in wax crayon? Don’t like all your eggs in one basket? Those type of “issues” eggs-ceed my previously eggs-aggerated capabilities. Maybe you should seek professional help.

Whew!  I’m eggs-hausted, and I bet you’re ready to eggs-coriate me. I have an egg-cellent eggs-cuse for my eggs-asperating behavior: Just call me Humpty Dumpty. And you can eggs-hale because what I found while eggs-cavating your basket was lost in the eggs-plosion.  Happy Easter!

© 2009 Natalie Whatley

Happy Easter, Baytown! 

In an effort to put together something coherent and clever for your Easter- Sunday perusal, I set out researching Easter-y things.  I came out on the other side of two hours, with a strange conglomeration of information, no direction whatsoever, and feeling a bit stressed. I strive to maintain some standards, and to say I wasn’t ”feeling it” this week would be an understatement.  

With the pollen count reaching infinity, I’ve been in a Benadryl-induced fog for well over a week.  I also feel compelled to remind you the kids are out of school, and Jeff’s off from work for spring break; short of locking myself in the bathroom, I haven’t had much alone time to work on my weekly offering. I’m certain I’ll look back on this article, and say, “What was I thinking?” Then I’ll remind myself that I wasn’t. I couldn’t. Clear as mud, right?  Here goes.

I know I’m not alone in thinking Easter seemed to come early this year; it did.  Since the middle ages, Easter has been observed on the first Sunday after the first full moon that occurs on, or before March 21^st.  Given that, the earliest possible date for Easter is March 22^nd. Easter hasn’t fallen on that date since 1818, and won’t do so again, until the year 2285!

This year, Easter falls on March 23^rd, and it won’t fall on this date again until the year 2160.

The latest possible date for Easter is April 25^th. Easter hasn’t landed on that date since 1943, but will do so again in the year 2038. I think I have a good sporting chance of making it to that one.  

Before anyone e-mails to set me straight, I am aware that the calculation rule stated above is for the Western Christian churches. The Eastern Christian churches follow a different method. I’ll not confuse the issue by delving into the details. Let’s just say there have been efforts made over many years to reach an accord, and folks were unable to agree. Imagine that.  My mind is still reeling from trying to understand it all. Feel free to look it up at your own leisure.

Switching over to an entirely different subject (I warned you that I was not thinking clearly), I found that the Jelly Belly Candy Company has been selling  Bertie Bott’s Jelly Beans. (Warning: Don’t read the next few lines if you have a weak stomach) Partitioned neatly inside the 1.6 oz. box are jelly beans of the following flavors: earwax, bacon, dirt, spinach, grass, booger, sardine, black pepper, rotten egg, earthworm, soap, spaghetti, and last, but certainly not least, vomit. Yuck! And who was the person who taste-tested and knew what all those things should taste like? Double Yuck!

How do I know that every man who just read this is looking for a box right now? I pity the poor unsuspecting soul who picks up a few of these out of the bowl on his co-workers desk.

I think I’ll avoid jelly beans until I’m thinking a little more clearly.