The Trauma of Soft-Boiled Eggs

Her name is Ms. Celis. I don't know if it's because nearly three decades have passed since I've uttered that name or if it's due to an inherent fear she instilled in me, but I can't seem to recall Ms. Celis's first name. To an impressionable seven-year-old boy who couldn't figure out why for the life of him the easiness of kindergarten had to end, Ms. Celis's first name might as well have been Satan. That seven-year-old boy was me, and Ms. Celis was my first grade teacher.

Whenever I'm feeling nostalgic (which is normally when I'm drunk), I look at some old class pictures, one of which is of my first grade class at a little school in the Philippines called Malate Catholic School. Ms. Celis, of course, was in that picture, a foreboding matriarch amidst of sea of nearly identical looking little Filipino boys. In that particular picture, I was on the first row and was crouched alongside eight classmates. We all had a similar look of horror on our faces.

There were nine months in that semester, and I'm certain there were plenty of memorable moments--first real friendships, first academic accomplishments, etc. Yet for some reason, only one vivid memory remains of my first grade of elementary education. It was of a science experiment that involved an egg. For this science experiment, evil incarnate (that is, Ms. Celis) asked us to do one thing to an egg, and that one thing would be the basis of our discussion the following day. She asked us to boil that egg and bring it to class. Here was the clincher: we had to choose between preparing the egg so that it would be either soft-boiled or hard-boiled. Sounded simple enough. Little did I know that my decision that evening would eventually shape the rest of my life. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's get back to the egg, and how my mother inadvertently contributed to one traumatic experience.

Fast forward to that evening, when I finally asked my mother to boil me an egg. I explained to her that the teacher had asked us to choose between soft-boiled and hard-boiled. "Well, what do you want to do?" my mother had asked me, fully intending to help me be more decisive in life. "Make it hard-boiled!" my father yelled from the living room, apparently listening to our conversation in the kitchen. I asked him why, and he just shrugged. I looked to my mother again for advice, but she just smiled at me. For no real reason whatsoever, I chose soft-boiled. (In hindsight, I think it was because I thought "hard-boiled" would be what most of my classmates would choose to do, and I wanted to be a little nonconformist.) "Soft-boiled it is," my mother said, and proceeded to prepare the egg. She explained to me the elaborate process of boiling an egg, which, at the time, sounded absolutely fascinating to me. Of course, I also found snails and slugs fascinating back then.

The following morning, I took my soft-boiled egg to school. My mother had carefully covered it with layers of kitchen paper, and wrapped it in foil. Early in the day, I discovered I was the only one who prepared his egg soft-boiled. I remember feeling slightly triumphant, and relished it even more so when Ms. Celis mentioned it to the entire class. I'm pretty sure I beamed with pride. Now, I can't quite recall the purpose of the science lesson but it was Ms. Celis's "reward" to the class that forever ingrained this singular event to memory.

She thanked all of us for participating in the project, and then instructed us to go ahead and eat our boiled egg. The sounds of eggshells being cracked open and peeled off permeated the room. An excited chatter surrounded me as my classmates enjoyed their hard-boiled egg. I, however, sat in silence, staring at my soft-boiled egg, its gelatinous contents swirling with each slight hand movement. Being stupid, I mean, seven (which is, essentially, stupid), I cracked my egg by tapping it lightly on the surface of my desk. The laws of physics (and the existence of karma) made the soft-boiled contents spill out as the protective shell broke apart. I was mortified as the gooey contents of my nonconformist egg got sprayed all over my hands, the desk, and my school uniform.

Then, the laughter ensued. First, from my classmates in my immediate vicinity and then, like a California wildfire, from the entire class. But the final nail on the coffin was when Ms. Celis walked over, surveyed the situation, and let out hearty chuckle of her own. She helped me clean up the mess, but continued giggling--all the while chastising my fellow classmates for doing the same. I'm pretty sure I cried that day.

Now, I'm certain Ms. Celis was not truly evil. And just because I can't recall the other two-hundred and seventy days of my first scholastic year doesn't mean it wasn't comprised of other, more positive life-shaping experiences. Although it took years to get over my soft-boiled egg trauma, I don't shy away from them anymore and, in fact, prefer my eggs a little on the gooey side. However, if I could go back in time, I would make a different choice and ask my mother to make it hard-boiled. Maybe then, my life would've been a little less messy.