Breaking eggs to make...an omelet?

April 11, 2013

One of the day to day activities I engage to remain sane is a daily walk with my dogs.  We have a number of locations off the beaten path, where the dogs can run free and my mind can run free listening to a growing number of anomaly/paranormal related podcasts.

Several days after April Fools day we went along a route we hadn't been on in over a week.  The dogs brought my attention to a broken eggshell.  Not a small native bird egg which might have been washed out of its nest during the storms we'd had a few days before, but clearly a generic chicken egg shell.  Odd, out there  quite far from the road, but various bits of detritus from humanity show up there from time to time.

Walking a bit further along, we came across another broken eggshell.  Strange, but even stranger we came across another broken chicken eggshell, and then another, and then more and more.  There were at least two dozen of them scattered over several hundred yards of open ground, and probably even more.

What was going on here?  How had all these eggs showed up here, shortly after April Fools Day, truly anomalous from any previous experience walking back in these woods?  The human mind is a pattern seeking tool, always attempting to make sense of its world, placing phenomena within a familiar framework in order to deal with them.  Anomalies seem to cry out for an explanation.

I'm almost ashamed to admit that one possibility came to mind was some sort of Fortean fall, possibly even some eggs that had been sucked up during the recent storms, which had after all been of a fierce magnitude rarely seen around these drought stricken parts.  Listening to so many podcasts recently about similar strange happenings had indeed make this at least one possibility to consider. Another was the more obvious explanation that someone was eating eggs out there, but why so many?  Or had someone come across several dozen spoiled eggs and decided to throw them about, for reasons that were far from clear to a reasonable mind?

But other possibilities had to also be considered, and one finally came which has since stuck.  True, it had recently been April Fools day, but immediately prior to that was Easter.  A local tradition here in Central Texas involves cascarones, brightly dyed empty chicken eggs filled with confetti to be broken over the head of fellow celebrants during this holiday's celebrations.  They are sold by the dozens by the roadside in the days before Easter, along beside bizarrely misshapen pinatas meant to represent favorite childhood pop cultural icons. But cascarones are always characterized by their brilliant colors, while all these eggs were their natural white color, and there was no sign of confetti any around.

So what was going on here?  My mind has to have some sort of answer, especially when I can hardly ignore this odd assortment when I walk the dogs here.

Have you come across the answer yet?

No, not a localized deluge of shattered ovum, but rather the remnants of an cascarone fight!  The dye had washed off the shells and the confetti washed away with the recent rains.  Another anomaly debunked, although another attempt by an April Foolish mind.