Easter egg hunt, or challenging your christian values

We were hurled into a big trailer, towed by a real farm tractor. In the trailer, big hay cubes had been charmingly and conveniently arranged for the hunters to sit on during the short bumping ride to the remote field where the egg hunt was to take place.

Everything was so picturesque, so authentic, I began feeling like Old MacDonald’s pretty young wife (yes he had one, she is simply not mentioned in the song).

I looked around me, the sight was amazing, endless fields of corn or wheat (or whatever), little farm houses here and there, the glorious weather, the smell of the hay I was sitting on, the excited laughs of the children around me, the feeling I was doing something right, some genuine fun with my daughter and my two nephews, I felt elevated and alive.

I looked at the other parents in the trailer I felt some kind of bond with each of them. We are after all so alike, we all love our children, and we all sit on hay. The melody of “We Are the World" started to resonate in my ears. Everybody around seemed to share my happy mood, in their weekend clothes and their boots.

Boots? Why did they wear boots? I quickly scanned the rest of the passengers at foot level: all boots. All kinds of boots, pink plastic boots, green army boots, spider man boots, and finally down to my own feet, white sneakers. I felt suddenly very lonely.

Mud… How did they all know? Who tipped them off? The warm feeling of universal brotherhood I was experiencing before started to fade away.

I decided not to let such a detail ruin my otherwise perfect country experience.

I looked lovingly at my three little companions. Their red cheeks and sparkling eyes were saying it all. They were jealously holding on to the little plastic pouches they were given when we purchased our tickets. Except my daughter—she had noticed the other kids were holding real Easter baskets, instead of miniature pouches.

“Why don’t we have a real Easter basket?"

Good question, which I repeated to the boots-wearing Dad sitting in front of me.

“Oh, we brought these from home, so the kids can pick up more eggs."

Bad answer, which was immediately processed, analyzed and rejected by the supercomputer installed in my daughter’s brain and able to detect any injustice, unfairness or inequality in privileges distribution. I agreed with her. This was not fair.

A quick scanning of the other passengers at lap level revealed that everybody was carrying a real Easter basket. “We Are the World" just stopped. I looked at my three little protégés with the feeling I was sending them unprepared out into the world.

The tractor stopped, in front of a field. A rosy-cheeked country girl proceeded to explain the rules of the game—new to me, old news to the other parents, who started deploying their forces onto the field before she even finished her first sentence.

Eggs had been disseminated on this field, kids were welcome to find and collect them in their little pouches/huge baskets. No more than ten eggs per child. And the most important: There was one Golden Egg, and the finder of that Golden Egg would be awarded a special prize at the cashier, but more importantly, would be covered with the golden veil of glory for the rest of his or her earthly life.

I hurried my troop into the field, we had a mission: find the Golden Egg. That would make things right, I figured. That would compensate for not telling me about the boots and the baskets, for keeping me out of the parents’ loop, for giving me “the look."

Unfortunately, my soldiers were brave but clumsy they had no strategy, no method, and above all, had not understood it was a war.

I knew. I watched the parents. They were seemingly casually walking the field, but I could recognize their trajectory was not random it was scientifically calculated to cover the field the most efficiently while X-raying the little bushes for eggs. At first they were simply tipping off their kids when they found an egg, to keep up appearances. But when the eggs became rare, they started picking them up themselves.

In my camp, things were not going well we had dispersed, and lost contact with each other. One of my nephews had shoelace problems, the other stopped to observe closely a deer dropping. My daughter was walking the field as if she was looking for eggs, but she was too busy mumbling to herself how unfair this whole basket situation was and how she started with a disadvantage. She had lost the battle in her mind before it had even begun. When it was clear that there were no eggs left, except the golden one, we were clearly behind, with an average of four eggs per child. The little pouch was more than enough.

I kept hoping for the Golden Egg. So did my daughter, who had read my mind, or maybe I was mumbling myself by then. We started looking in earnest. Even the other parents were not pretending anymore. Everyone was walking with their eyes to the earth, focused and concentrated. I thought we deserved the Golden Egg.

Then, I heard a mom’s voice screaming, “We found it!" She was standing with a tiny little girl at her side, and holding up the Golden Egg. I found myself genuinely hating this woman.

I turned to my little girl, she started to cry. I knew why she was crying, I almost cried myself, but I told her, “Why are you crying? Can’t you be happy for that little girl?"

We operated a retreat to the trailer, defeated and disappointed. We sat back on our hay bench, and I could not help but notice that hay is not that comfortable after all. My smallest nephew was obsessively counting again and again his three-eggs bounty, hoping at each recount that he might have missed one during the previous count. My daughter was staring shamelessly at the tiny little girl grabbing the Golden Egg in her hand. I knew she was mentally evaluating the distance between her and the prized treasure, and battling inner voices urging her to leap forward and take what she had decided was rightfully hers. Some of her inner struggle might have leaked out, because after a few minutes, the tiny little girl put the egg safely back into her Easter basket.

The trailer stopped at our starting point. I decided to cheer my staff up and pasted an Easter smile on my face.

'Let's go to the Moon Bounce!'

Fifteen minutes and hundreds of bounces later, my troop had managed to shake the frustration away. Golden Egg girl was just a memory. We drove back home, and only then, I realized my rear end was covered with hay, and I understood why Old Mc Donald's pretty young wife is never mentionned.