The Case of the Unbroken Eggs

I was in my kitchen, trying to prove once and for all you actually can make an omelet without breaking some eggs, when the phone rang. It was the police, of course. Ever since I saw that episode of Colombo they’ve had me working on all kinds of cases with them. So I put my experiment aside, grabbed my 5 pack of Juicy Fruit, and headed out.

Four sticks of gum later I was in the driveway of what looked like a mansion. In fact I would say it was a mansion except there was no butler. The murder scene was typical: body, blood, fingerprints everywhere; there was nothing out of the ordinary.

The cops said all the evidence pointed to the wife, something about matching fingerprints, a gun in her pocket and killing two previous husbands for their money, but I wasn’t buying it. After all, it was a kitchen, and no woman would commit a murder in her natural habitat.

I decided to have a look around. What struck me were the eggs lying on the counter. I knew immediately what it meant: this poor victim and I had the same hobby.

I used my detective cunning to create the scene. The man had come home early from a hard day’s work, a busy day working in the coal mines; no doubt he was a working man with that blue collar. He had met his wife at the door and begun to work on his only source of joy in life: trying to make an omelet without breaking some eggs, just as I had been doing earlier that day. There was a ring at the door. His poor wife had answered the door, not knowing what was on the other side. It was too late: the government had caught up with him.

Obviously, this man had been trying to make an omelet without breaking some eggs for some time. The government organization that regulates tired clichés, The Department of Homeland Security, keeps sharp watch over their use; they don’t like it when people go messing around in their territory. They had killed this poor working man for practicing his only hobby.

I couldn’t tell the police this story, of course: I have enough government eyes on me as it is. I told them the butler had done it. They said I should at least interview the victim’s wife before drawing conclusions, so I did, but it proved nothing. She babbled, as all women do, and I eventually zoned out. I stuck by my previous story, and, when the cops told me the house didn’t have a butler, I said it was the butler from next door. The cops arrested him, and I used my last stick of Juicy Fruit, along with three more I found in the woman’s underwear drawer, to get home.

The Butler is currently awaiting trial.

The woman moved next door to me.

I just won Publisher’s Clearing House. And I’m getting married.