By Stephanie Greene
“Please let me cook you eggs? I’m really good at it, I promise,” I begged her.
“Fine, but I’m trusting you,” she replied.
I was 8-years-old and home with only my big sister, Elyssa. I wanted to impress her, and breakfasttime was quickly approaching.
I found the frying pan as fast as I could and placed it on the electric stovetop with a gentle clink. Next, I had to get the ingredients: bread, eggs, milk, cheese and butter. All of this wound up on the counter next to the frying pan. I found one of the orange plastic bowls that I liked so much and lightly tossed that on the counter, too.
Crack, plop went the eggs into the orange bowl. I whisked them and added some milk, like my big sister showed me. The bread went into the toaster and the butter into the frying pan. I waited for the inevitable sizzle and pop of the butter in the pan to signify it was ready for the eggs. I lightly poured in the egg batter and waited for the eggs to thicken and solidify. The last step to the process, the yellow American cheese slices that we loved so much. I pushed everything around in the pan with my spatula until I was satisfied and then I heard the ding of the toaster.
Elyssa wandered downstairs, still wearing an oversized T-shirt from her bat mitzvah and elastic shorts. She was slowly waking, as 16-year-olds are known to do, and she plopped herself down in one of the six white, leather rolling kitchen chairs. I arranged the eggs on the plate, took the bread out of the toaster and placed everything on the table. I poured the milk into our special edition Disney glasses from Burger King and set those onto the table as well.
“Everything looks really good, Stephanie. Thanks for making breakfast,” she said politely.
“No problem!”
We both began to dig into the breakfast feast that I had set out. The eggs were yellow and perfectly fluffy. The bread was toasted to perfection and the butter was melting on it the same way it did at IHOP. I was one proud 8-year-old.
“Stephanie, what is this?” she asked me.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I replied.
“This,” she pointed. “This right here, what is it?”
"I don’t know." I felt a bit of nausea. "Cheese?”
“Oh my God,” Elyssa said, horrified.
I looked at her plate and knew right away. There was a hair in her eggs. It took Elyssa 12 years to let me cook for her again.
Stephanie Greene is a senior student of journalism at Rutgers University. She is also a blogger, freelance editor and writer with prior experience in media production. Ms. Greene can be reached at steph.greene92@gmail.com.
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