Breakfast Burrito

Bit of a different kind of post today. Apolitical.

Enjoy…

It was a morning like any other. I was hungry. Lately, I’ve been making breakfast burritos.

Grab a plate, throw a tortilla on it. Two breakfast sausage patties in the pan on medium. Spread sour cream with a spoon on the tortilla. Chop sausage with spatula. Shredded Mexican cheese blend on sour cream layer. Stir up sausage so they don’t burn. Two eggs mixed with a fork in a bowl with a splash of milk for fluffiness. Pour into pan. Scramble with sausage. Fling onto tortilla. Amply cover with Emeril’s Southwest Essence. BAM! Burrito-ize. Eat. Top off with tall glass of orange juice. Move on to coffee.

One bowl. One spatula. One spoon. One fork. One tall glass. Pan. Dishwasher. Easy cleanup.

Paper plate. Garbage. Easier cleanup.

Stomach. Full.

There was a break in this morning’s burrito routine, however. An unexpected… something.

It was all going according to plan... until I reached for the eggs.

Normally, I would open the ‘fridge, lift the lid on the egg compartment, then the lid on the egg container, grab two eggs, close everything and crack the eggs in a bowl. This time, I got as far as grabbing the first egg.

When I tried to pick it up, it was stuck. At first I thought the egg was broken and the egg white seeped out a little and dried, sticking the shell to the carton. But I took a closer look and the egg wasn’t broken. It was just sort of shaped funny toward the bottom and wedged tight to the walls of the cradle. I took a firm grip and tried not to break it as I rocked it out of the carton. It seemed to be working.

And working.

Still working.

By the time I got the entire egg out of its Styrofoam home, it turned out to be nearly three times as long as a normal egg, twice as wide, and unevenly bulbous and lumpy. Like a warty potato. Only completely made out of white eggshell.

And heavier than it looked.

As I stared curiously at this “egg,” it never occurred to me that it would have been quite impossible for that twice-wide, triple-length object to fit in the container in the first place.

Even if the foam carton had a hole cut in the bottom, the refrigerator shelf on which it rested did not.

But like I said, I didn’t notice.

What I did notice was that this peculiarity, even though it was in a cold refrigerator, seemed to be substantially warmer than it should have been.

I noticed it, but I didn’t think that it was strange. Let alone impossible.

Unless whatever it was, was alive.

I brought it close to my eyes, turning it slowly, hoping I could somehow maybe see inside it. Nothing. I just got a good look at the texture. Lumpy, bumpy and pockmarked. It was fascinating, but revealed nothing about what it was or why it was warm.

Then I got the idea to hold it up to the refrigerator light.

Now, THAT I wasn’t expecting.

The solid opaque shell became translucent. It was like the thing turned into glass.

Inside was a fully formed, normal, thirteen week old HUMAN embryo. Floating in a solution that had tiny particles suspended it, but otherwise clear. Just like every in utero photo or video you’ve ever seen in a science book or program.

Then I woke up and it was all a dream.

Good day.