The Egg Incident

My friends sit around the living room: a couple on the couch and one on the floor, their eyes fixated on me, silently hoping that I will rescue them from their boredom. The December night is chilly, and it finds us hanging out inside with nothing to do. The only thing that prevents an awkward silence between us is the background noise of Kenny Mayne covering college basketball highlights on ESPN’s Sports Center. I’m relaxed, sprawled out on the loveseat, trying hard to focus my attention on the television, although I know a hole is being burned right through me by my staring friends. I’m not irritated with my friends for wanting me to come up with an idea to keep them occupied. On the contrary, I’m just extremely comfortable lying on the small couch, and I intend to keep it that way. As the host, I suppose I’m obligated to keep my friends entertained, but I’ve been doing that all day. I try to reason with myself, thinking that they probably wouldn’t make an effort to cure my boredom, so I shouldn’t try to cure theirs. But at that moment, almost instinctively, the gears in my head start turning and ideas begin to materialize, like popcorn popping – slowly at first, but then almost out of control. Finally, after what seems like a thousand ideas have popped into my head, I’ve got the perfect plan, the one that will cure their boredom.

With a smirk on my face, I gradually sit up. This tiny movement causes a stir in the room, and a look of eagerness comes over my friends’ previously somber faces. “Alright boys,” I say with the confidence of a politician, “I know what we can do. Follow me.” We all get up quickly. It is obvious they’re excited. “What the hell are we gonna do,” Matt asks impatiently, but I keep my plans guarded. I stroll out of the room, leading the group into the kitchen. Again, they question me about what we’ll be doing. I remain silent. I make a pit stop at the refrigerator, open the door, and scan its contents… milk, orange juice, soda, leftover lasagna, lettuce… none of which I am seeking. At last, on a shelf near the bottom of the door itself, I have found my treasure; an unopened carton of white eggs. I reach down, grab the box, and present it to my friends. They look puzzled at first. “Let’s go egg some cars on Pound Road,” I tell them. The confused look on their faces is instantly replaced with smiles from ear to ear. It truly is a brilliant idea.

All four of us now have an energized step in our stride and we make our way towards our destination. I hurriedly swing open the door leading into my house from the garage and we are outside. The Rhode Island night air is cold and crisp, inconsiderate to our lungs which have been indoors for so long. There isn’t a cloud in the sky and the unobstructed moon vividly lights up the night. It’s a chilly but beautiful setting for some mischievous acts. We walk through my backyard, laughing and talking, an egg in each of our hands. Parallel to the yard is a long driveway, covered in darkness by overhanging trees on either side. The driveway’s exit is the busy Pound Road. The driveway will undoubtedly serve as our hiding place, firing range, and getaway route.

We stalk down the poorly lit driveway, making sure to stay as close to the trees as possible. I am hoping that, although it is a somewhat late hour, there will be a few cars we can take aim at. I look at my friends, all of them still smiling, overcome with the feelings of childish excitement that this activity is providing them. “Hey Schimmel,” I whisper. “You’re wearing a white jacket you idiot.” He examines his attire and then looks at me with vulnerable eyes, rousing laughter from the entire group. We make it to the end of the driveway and discover that there is a single street light illuminating Pound Road directly across from our hideout. It will provide us with perfect lighting to see an oncoming car as we sit in the darkness of the driveway. This is the perfect plan, I think to myself.

We sit eagerly awaiting our first victim and speak of the normal things boys in Rhode Island talk about: girls, summer, girls, the Red Sox, and of course, girls. Already and without hesitation, my friends have chosen me as the first “egger.” In most of these “dangerous” situations, I am usually the guinea pig among the group. It only takes about five minutes for the first car to approach. We hear the engine purring up the road, and then we see the headlights flickering through the trees as the car rounds the turn a few hundred yards away. My heart is pounding in my chest and adrenaline is rushing through my veins; a potent blend of excitement and anxiety. The car is only about fifty feet away now. I stand from my crouching position and prepare to rocket the egg at the unsuspecting prey. The streetlight is my timing device, and when the car is in range, I fire. No egg cracking… no splatter… no brakes screeching. The only sound is the car as it continues down the road, unscathed. A misfire. I can only assume that the egg has fallen harmlessly in the yard across the street. I turn to my friends with a grin on my face and I shrug my shoulders. They return the look and the gesture. “Nice shot, Lavoie,” Matt says with a laugh. “Yeah that was miserable,” I agree. 0 for 1 on the night…

We only have to wait a couple of minutes before we hear the familiar sound of another car innocently approaching us. Kyle steps in front of the group and volunteers to do the deed. He takes position and waits. As the car comes into the light, Kyle stands up and hurls the egg. The next few seconds seem to take a lifetime to happen. The egg travels through the air, seemingly in slow motion, and my point of view leads me to realize it’s going to be a direct hit. The egg shatters on the driver’s side window, and time changes from slow motion to fast forward instantaneously. The black Honda slams on its brakes and the four of us bolt down the driveway. I am running so fast it’s as if my feet aren’t even touching the ground. My mind is racing even faster. God I hope they didn’t see us. We cross my yard and reach the safety of my driveway, turn around to scan the scene and realize that the car has not stopped to investigate. Why wouldn’t they stop, I wonder to myself.

Relief has taken the place of fear and we all start laughing hysterically. The group gives Kyle high-fives and pats on the back for his expert marksmanship. As a precautionary measure, I turn off the sensor light that normally sheds light on my driveway. The cold air has no effect on our adrenaline-laced bodies, so we stand at the edge of my driveway and reflect on our immature, yet extremely enjoyable actions.

No more than five minutes pass before our cheerfulness turns back to panic. Out of my pitch-black backyard, an angry man makes his presence known. “Hey,” he yells as he runs towards us. “You kids stay right there!” Before he can even get the last of his words out, we are sprinting towards the house. Leading the group, I begin to head into the lighted garage through which we would enter my house. At the last possible second, even though my mind was foggy with fright, I realize that would be the dumbest thing we could ever do. By now I was a step or two in the garage, so I change course on a dime, duck out of the garage, and begin my mad dash towards freedom. Schimmel follows my lead, but the other two keep their course through the garage and into the house. Schimmel and I are now sprinting in stride as we cross my cul-de-sac and head for the woods behind my neighbor’s house. “I’ll run all night you little pricks,” the man screams. I can hear his footsteps trying to keep pace with us on the concrete. Did he not hear my friends go in the house? Why is he still chasing us? Even though my thoughts were frantically trying to make sense of the situation, my muscles couldn’t care less whether or not he heard Matt and Kyle go in the house or why he was still chasing us. I was running the fastest I had ever run. We finally reach the woods and hop on a path we both know well, hoping that the man has no desire to follow us into unknown territory. Schimmel spots a pile of leaves my neighbor had dumped from his yard and dives in, frenetically trying to cover his entire body and trying his hardest not to make a sound. I watch him do this and consequently run smack into a tree. In any other circumstance, I probably would have gone down in a heap, writhing in pain, but in this moment I feel nothing, except for fear. Looking up at the tree, I realize it’s the perfect hiding spot. I scurry up the branches and hug it so hard that I can hardly breathe. I hear the man hop over the stone wall that marks the entrance to the woods, and begin to make his way towards our hideouts. I grasp the tree even harder, praying that I resemble it enough so as not to be seen. But the man does not know the terrain, and he quickly hops back over the wall. “I’m not goin’ anywhere,” yells the faceless man, but there was a sense of hopelessness in his angry voice. He knows damn well that there was no way we would ever give ourselves up. My heart was still racing and I completely lose track of the time. To this day I don’t know how long we were in those woods.

I finally muster up the courage to climb down, but I am exceptionally cautious not to make a sound. I make my way toward Schimmel’s leaf-pile, knowing that he is still cowering underneath. I carefully plan each step, minimizing the noise, hoping that the man isn’t waiting for us on the other side of the stone wall. I reach Schimmel, and stick my arm through the leaves. I find his shoulder and whisper as quietly as I can. “Hey, let’s try to get out of here.” There is no answer. Instead, he slowly emerges from the pile, leaves sticking out of his clothes in every which way. “That sucked,” he whispers. I can’t help but laugh at the blatancy of his statement. We make our way to the edge of the woods; no sign of the man anywhere. The Christmas tree is still lit in my living room window. I know my mom is still awake, which means my Kyle and Matt are probably still in there as well. We make sure the coast is clear and then trot across the cul-de-sac and down my driveway. Still no sign of the man.

Trying to be as quiet as possible, we walk through the garage and enter my house. My mom, Matt and Kyle are sitting in the living room, completely silent. Schimmel and I walk into the room with our heads down. We are both aware that my mom knows what we had done. She breaks the awful silence. “Well, obviously I am not happy with any of you. What the hell were you kids thinking?!” I shrug my shoulders, still staring at the floor, refusing to make eye contact with her. “I don’t want you boys to ever do anything like that again. It was immature and stupid, but I know what it’s like to be a kid.” Wait a second, I think. This is it? She’s not going to ground me? I slowly lift my head, giving my best effort to produce a face so that she knows I’m sorry for what we had done. “Go in the kitchen and grab us all a cold Coke,” she says to me with a smile.

I walk to the kitchen and open the refrigerator. I grab five Cokes and, before closing the door, I look down and see the carton of eggs sitting at the bottom. I laugh to myself as the door clicks shut.

We sit around for an hour telling my mom exactly what we had done and where Schimmel and I had been for the past who knows how long. It was then that I learned the man was an off-duty police officer heading home for the night. After he had trapped us in the woods, he walked back to my house and knocked on the front door. My mom answered and he told her what had happened, while Matt and Kyle hid upstairs. Like any parent, she was extremely mad at first, but she got over it surprisingly quickly. I guess she knew that four immature kids combined with a whole lot of boredom can equal bad news for the surrounding public. Some kids do drugs when they get bored, and others drink alcohol. The worst we ever did was throw eggs at cars. After my friends left that night, I received a lengthy lecture from both my mom and dad. But they didn’t punish me. I learned the only lesson I needed to while hugging that tree in the middle of the woods on a cold December night. The event became known as “The Egg Incident” around my house.

I’ve always found it funny how some of the best memories we have come from such bad ideas. I guess it’s just part of growing up. You live and you learn, but in the middle of it all, you have to enjoy it. After all, when it comes down to it, life is only as good as the memories we make. And to this day, I still smile whenever I see a carton of eggs.