COLUMN: When eggs and astrophysics combine
The recent onslaught of warmer weather, commonly called spring, means two things to me:
1.) I can finally stop trying to balance stupid eggs on their ends.
2.) I don’t have to spend another night in jail.
A couple of weeks ago I heard a vicious rumor that on the vernal equinox each year, it is possible to stand a raw egg upright. I see no useful reason for doing such a task, but since scientific curiosity blatantly controls my life, I decided to investigate the phenomenon.
Apparently, the Chinese began balancing eggs a long time ago on the first day of spring as a ritual offering to their god of the post-winter period, the Easter Bunny. Unfortunately, little Chinese ruffians described the traditions of their fathers as “way lame,” so they took baseball bats and turned the good tidings into what we now call egg foo young. This repulsive action prompted a small revolution in history called Buddhism.
But you’ll never read anything about this incident in textbooks. Government inspired cover-ups have rewritten history to only include one statement from the egg-balancing years:
“Springtime always made us really sick of chocolate, so we invented a couple of new holidays, and now we can actually eat rabbits instead of glorify them. Mmmmm.”
But, back to the egg fiasco. Basically, what I learned from my research is that some people made the whole thing up. It may have been the Chinese or even Chuck E. Cheese’s employees, but more than likely it was made up by the Bush administration to somehow advance the war on terror.
Their logic probably includes something about the sun being right over the equator, evenly splitting night from day, altering the gravitational pulls on the earth ever so slightly to make it feasible for balancing eggs, which must mean there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But then again, I don’t think our president could come up with anything that sounds so scientific. After all, this is the same man who after four years hasn’t figured out that “nuclear” isn’t spelled “nucular.”
Even though I found out that eggs can be balanced on their ends any time of year and not just on the vernal equinox, I had to test it for myself. After a few minutes of extreme patience and finally getting a friend to do it for me, BEHOLD, the eggs stood! And who said spring break in Logan is boring?
The vernal equinox this year brought me much more “eggscitement” than the “eggstatic” dopes around the world convinced of their wondrous physical powers over undeveloped chicken offspring. I went to jail.
I’ve been a very bad boy. Or at least that is what I surmised when I was invited to spend the night in the new Cache County jail. It turned out that I was just requested to help out with some Boy Scout troops who were working on their “Let’s pretend to be hardened criminals” merit badge.
Last Friday we entered the new correctional facility west of town for an overnight stay. Very quickly the leaders realized their dreams came true as all of their Scouts got locked in cell blocks and, except for a couple activities, were stuck in there all night.
The adults, however, could roam around the area as much as they pleased and spent most of the evening laughing at what they saw. The windows of the cellblocks are made of a special mirrored Lexguard plexiglass. So, basically, none of the Scouts could see out and certainly could never break out.
The view appeared more chaotic than watching disgruntled, Ritalin-deprived lab monkeys roam around in utter madness – and that was before bedtime. At 10:45 p.m. the lights were turned off, but no one could sleep. The nighttime lighting arrangement in jail seems to resemble closely the infield of Yankee Stadium during the World Series.
So of course, the Scouts got more rowdy, but some might actually have gotten half an hour of sleep that night. Obviously they didn’t live by the Scout motto, “Always bring a shotgun,” or they would have been better prepared for the sleeping arrangement.
The boys weren’t really ready to be put in jail and probably expected something more like a Best Western. A few brave kids actually took showers in one of the cellblocks, even though more than 20 other Scouts were running around in there. Then as if room service were on the evening’s itinerary, (I’m not making this up) they buzzed the guard on the intercom and requested a few towels so they could dry off before bed.
I really don’t know if they had fun during their stay, but I’m sure the Scouts will never want to come back permanently. I know I will never return – unless for some reason I have to bail Blaine and John out. Then again, maybe I’ll just leave them there with a carton of eggs and a Chinese calendar.
Garrett Wheeler is a master’s engineering student, and although he lived in Singapore and Korea, he really has no clue about Chinese history. If you are mad or otherwise disgruntled, please e-mail wheel@cc.usu.edu