I gave the egg a chance even though it arrived from the store cracked.
I found my plastic slotted spoon – in the wrong kitchen drawer – and looked at the broken egg. When the water boiled, I lowered the white spoon slowly, allowing the egg to ease into the pot like a person entering a heated Jacuzzi one limb at a time.
“What happens not to an egg that cracks under pressure but one who starts out broken?” I mused.
It fizzed some, but the wounded egg didn’t burst in the time I took filling the pot with about a dozen more eggs. The yolk stayed intact while the shell stretched under pressure.
Egg white guts slipped through and hardened in the water but remained attached to the body like a fetus hanging by its umbilical cord.
Twelve minutes and thirty seconds later, the egg I might have otherwise tossed turned from would-be chicken to a ready-to-eat hardboiled protein snack.
I peeled the piece of masking tape off the refrigerator door; the “EGGS” label we stuck above the ice maker back when bird flu killed chickens and drove up the cost of eggs.
As I placed the red-topped, circular, plastic container in the fridge, I told myself how lucky I am to have everything I ever wanted under one roof.
Now, we have boiled eggs for breakfast, too.