Saturday, April 15, 2006

A Hunting We Will Go

It's time again for our annual Easter Egg hunt. This is a hunt for grownups (and teenagers), and it takes place after dark with flashlights. Hundreds of eggs are spread out over three yards in my mom's neighborhood. Most contain the usual jellybeans and chocolate eggs, but each family also contributes about some eggs containing little slips of paper. Each piece of paper lists a prize, and when the hunt is over we sit around the bonfire down by the river and pass out our prizes.

Some of the prizes are good, like the year we gave away Tom Petty and John Mellancamp CDs (Hubby and I each had a copy when we moved in together, so these were the duplicates). Some are not so good, like empty paint cans (my mother tries to get rid of these every year, but she has yet to have anyone actually take them home). One year a couple who were in the process of moving contributed about twenty eggs with the prize, "Help Bill & Joelle move." These, like the paint cans, went unclaimed. Most prizes, though, are things you'd sell in a tag sale, if you were having one. Some favorites from years past:

A two-piece set of imported rust-proof gardening tools (a toddler's plastic shovel and rake, made in China)
A Catch-The-Easter-Bunny kit (a shoebox, a stick, some twine and a carrot)
A Government-Approved Personal Protection kit (Saran wrap and duct tape)
A mildy aggressive female convict (this was won by the only single guy in the group, which made it particularly amusing. She was a fish who was bullying the rest of the residents in my aquarium. He opted not to take her, and we eventually gave her away to a pet store)

The most coveted prize every year, though, is my mother's chocolate cream pie. One year nobody found that egg, so the pie went unclaimed. I figure eventually someone will find the lost egg, and she'll be in trouble, because there will be two pies to be claimed after the hunt and she'll only have made one.

Well, I'm off to the basement, to see what I can rummage up for this year. I know there are some empty paint cans down there somewhere.

Posted by The Gradual Gardener :: 6:18 AM :: 11 Comments:

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