It was a cold morning here in the greater Windsor metroplex, and I decided that, rather than venture abroad to procure my thrice-weekly health-conscious breakfast at McDonald’s (an Egg/Sausage/Cheese McMuffin and an order of hash browns), I would fry up a couple of eggs in the warmth of the kitchen at Stately Johnson Manor South. It’s a contradiction, I suppose, that, if I am frying my own eggs, or when I have eggs at breakfast at Gus’s Diner (or anywhere that I am having breakfast out), I want my eggs over-easy. The egg yolk in an Egg/Sausage/Cheese McMuffin is broken of course. No problem for me. Luckily, the “law of contradiction” is never enforced otherwise the jails would overflow and I would be a frequent guest. I suppose I shouldn’t confess that I do not eat cheeseburgers, but I would be incensed if the cheese were omitted from my thrice-weekly Egg/Sausage/Cheese McMuffin. And while I won’t eat pastries that contain nuts, yet a bowl of vanilla ice-cream strewed with salted peanuts and chocolate sauce is among my favorite foods.

But I digress.

I broke the first egg successfully (no broken yolk) into my cast-iron skillet. I did not have the same success with the second egg as you note in the picture. “Damn,” I cried, “and double damn.” Nancy Johnson, my wise and wonderful wife, who was boiling porridge next to me, asked what was the source of my vexation. “Look,” I said, “See the waste I have laid to this egg rendering it inedible.” Did Mrs. Johnson roll her eyes? Perhaps. After 49 years of marriage I really don’t notice those things anymore. I used to tell Nancy that, if she continued to roll her eyes over my every little inconsistency, she might get them stuck in the “rolled-up” position one day.

Did she offer me comforting words, a balm in Gilead, extinguishing my sorrow and pain? Well, perhaps. Her reply was, “May that be the worst thing that happens to you today.” And I thought that that was a kind and generous response, whether it was meant to be or not. Beauty, after all, is in the eye of the beholder. It was certainly kinder and more generous than Nancy’s normal advice to me when I am confronted with a situation that calls forth my best whining: Cope!

And so I hope for you, Gentle Reader, that, whatever your metaphorical broken egg yolk might be, that that is the worst thing that happens to you today.