Looking Back
An Easter fiasco sends the adults on the hunt.
This Easter egg hunt had the adults working overtime.
One Easter weekend, my in-laws, John and Corky, planned a big egg hunt at my daughter’s house. They bought 96 plastic eggs and lots of candy to fill them. John and I would hide the eggs, and then my younger children and grandchildren would hunt for them.
“You think you can find some good hiding places?” John asked.
“Not only can I find some great places to hide the eggs,” I joked, “but with my memory, I’ll never be able to find them all.”
He laughed. “If there’s candy in them, the children will find them.”
The next morning, we were still asleep when the grandchildren pounced on us. “Is it time to hunt the Easter eggs, Grandpa?” my granddaughter asked. I knew I wasn’t going to get any more sleep, so I got up and cooked breakfast. Afterwards, it was all we could do to keep them inside while John and I hid the eggs.
We worked hard to find the best spots, and it took about 20 minutes to hide them all. We’d just finished and told the children they could hunt, when Corky appeared with a big bag of candy.
“John,” she asked, “have you seen the plastic eggs that I bought? I can’t find them.”
He glanced at me and turned to Corky. “You didn’t fill them?”
“No,” she replied. “I was just getting ready to.”
My grandson came over to show me a plastic egg he found. I opened it and, sure enough, it was empty. We collected the ones the children had found and shooed them back inside so that John and I could try to find the rest. When we finished, we could only find 82.
John grinned at me. “I guess you were right. We could hide our own Easter eggs and never find them.”
Corky filled the ones we found, and John and I hid them again. We kept a bag of candy with us, and when the children found one of the empty rogue eggs, we magically filled it for them. But then they realized that if they emptied the full ones and brought them back to us, we’d fill those, too. Pretty soon our bag was empty. We hadn’t planned to give them all of the candy; it just worked out that way. My little granddaughter climbed on my lap and said, “Grandpa, I’m glad you’re forgetful.”
I smiled and hugged her. I guess every cloud has a silver lining.