2004-12-22 - 7:18 p.m.

On the internal soundtrack: I don't know the name of it. Something classic rock.

I like UPS men. For some reason they always seem to be very nice, like it's a requirement for the job. It was a nice UPS man who happened by and gave me a key strategy when I was learning to parallel park in front of my parents' house when I was sixteen. (Start turning *before* your back end clears the back end of the car in front.) At the moment I have a particularly cute UPS man, who looks a little bit like Gay Matt from Melrose Place. He rings the doorbell when he drops off the packages and then when I open the office window, looks up and waves as he is running down the alley back to the truck.

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I am currently laughing my ass off over James Thurber's Hemingway-style take on "The Night Before Christmas":

�How would they get on the roof?� mamma asked.

�They fly.�

�Get into bed. You�ll catch cold.�

Mamma lay down in bed. I didn�t get into bed. I kept walking around.

�What do you mean, they fly?� asked mamma.

�Just fly is all.�

Mamma turned away toward the wall. She didn�t say anything.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

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This past weekend, we went to the tree farm with my parents, to pick out their tree. They got a nice fat 11-footer. They had to cut off 3 feet from the bottom to get it in the house, and they gave us a bunch of the branches they cut off, so we could lay them around the dining room railing and get that pine smell in the house despite our fake tree. Here's a picture of the Elusive Poindexter hiding behind the boughs:

As some of you may know, Brian visited Philadelphia last week. We finally had that ice cream we'd been promising we'd get, and more importantly, we also performed a rigorous scientific testing of the device known as the Eggstractor.

Awhile back, Brian mentioned that he is a gadget-aholic. He doesn't really like hard-boiled eggs, but he was dying to test this gadget out. I told him I would buy one and we could test it together, and then I would give it to my family as a joke gift, since they actually eat hard-boiled eggs. And so that is exactly what we did. Poindexter was kind enough to document the occasion and critique my eggstracting skills.

HYPOTHESIS

A) By compressing the eggstractor, the air within the device will seek a way to escape. While some of the air will move under the egg, some will enter the hole poked in the top. This air will break the seal between egg and shell and slightly compress the egg itself, allowing the force of pushing the egg through the hole in the eggstractor base to peel back the shell, leaving only the peeled egg as a final product.

B) None of this will work.

MATERIALS

Large or extra-large eggs
Pot to boil them in
Stovetop
Ice water
Eggstractor base
Eggstractor (the accordion-like device)

Notice also the pooping cat, a gift from Visgoth, on the windowsill observing.

PROCEDURE

There are a number of preliminary steps required for the Eggstractor to work properly. These steps include:

Preliminary Step 1. Boil eggs for 6-8 minutes, no longer.

Preliminary Step 2. After boiling eggs, carefully pour off the hot water and run cold water over the eggs.

Preliminary Step 3. Place eggs immediately in ICE WATER for a minimum of 10 minutes before eggstraction.

We left the eggs in the ice water for close to a half-hour, because we had to eat dinner. This may have negatively affected the outcome of the experiment by making the eggs themselves too stiff with cold.

Although we had each read the eggstructions carefully ahead of time so we knew what to expect, I read the eggstructions aloud to Brian as we proceeded.

Step 1. Tap the small end of the egg on the piercer on the base to create a small hole.

Here is Brian examining the small end of the egg post-tapping:

Step 2. Smack the large end of the egg on the counter to crack the shell.

Here, Brian is examining the large end after banging it on the counter to crack it. "Don't be timid!", the eggstructions said (seriously).

I see my Evil is flaring up.

Step 3. Place the egg, small end up, in the eggstractor base.
Step 4. Place Eggstractor over egg.
Step 5. Crisscross hands over the top of the Eggstractor and give one good fast push. If egg did not pop out on the first try, make sure you realign the egg in an upright position before trying again.

Here Brian prepares to push the egg out while I prepare to soften its landing. Note lip-biting of concentration:

Out it comes! Look at Brian squashing the Eggstractor flat!

Brian is an eggcellent eggstractor, but my eggstracting skills leave something to be desired. I did OK with the tapping and such:

But my puny arms could not provide enough of a quick push to force the air through to eggstract the egg, even though I stood on a stool so I could get more leverage.

Notice my hair swinging forward as I make the herculean effort to eggstract:

At one point, Brian reminds me, I did not have effective leverage and pushed the Eggstractor in such a way as to fling it completely off the counter. He says this was the funniest part of the entire process, but unfortunately we did not capture it on film. In looking back through the photos, I did find one post-flinging photo -- I had failed to notice that the Eggstractor is on the floor between the stool and the cabinet, and I am looking, as Poindexter described it, a bit EGGSasperated:

Poindexter was too busy snickering at my pathetic attempts, earning himself an inappropriate gesture and a look from his wife:

I even tried putting the Eggstractor on the floor, so I could put more of my weight on it, but I still could not effectively eggstract an egg. Plus I kept forgetting to realign the egg before trying to push again, leading Brian and Poindexter to shout in unison, "Reposition!" on several occasions.

RESULTS/OBSERVATIONS

The post-eggstraction pictures did not turn out well, but basically the entire egg except the very bottom of the large end (which came off easily) was completely eggstracted.

On several occasions, our eggs were broken along the edge of that shell piece. According to the troubleshooting guide, we were smacking the big end too hard (we were trying not to be timid!). We attempted to be slightly more timid but never did quite master the technique. Internet research suggests that fresher eggs work better -- something to try in future trials.

Poindexter reports that the device makes a "sickly funny sound, like a queef", when successful.

See the shell remaining in the Eggstractor base:

I look at the camera through the empty shell. Somehow this makes me think of when the Terminator's face got kinda ripped off and he had one mechanical eye showing:

I think I might've eggstracted one egg, but that was it -- Brian had to do the rest. One of them exploded, which was enormously entertaining:

Here are all the eggs, ready for the trash can. Nobody was going to eat them, and they STUNK:

CONCLUSIONS

With further improvement of our big-end-cracking technique, immersing the eggs in ice water for a shorter time period (though still longer than the 10-minute minimum) and using eggs that have not been sitting in the fridge for over a week, I believe we could consistently produce perfectly eggstracted eggs. Well, Brian could, anyway.

The device requires a number of exacting preparations, which may make some people decide they'd rather just peel the damn things and be done with it.