The heat may have scrambled my brain

Either the heat has gotten to me or this is who I really am.

I have always wondered if there was any truth to the saying, “It's hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk.”

So what better time to try it out than in the midst of our Southern California heat wave? On a day when temps were soaring into triple digits, I decided the time had come.

Donning a floppy straw hat and large dark sunglasses, I set out to brave the heat of my driveway. The transition from air-conditioned kitchen to the outdoor inferno gave me momentary pause. But I was too far gone. Nothing could stop me now from a research project that had been on my mind since childhood.

Cold egg in hot hand, I searched for the perfect place to crack it. I selected a spot near the garden hose where the bougainvillea covering the courtyard fence spills onto the cement. At least my egg would have something pretty to look at while it fried. If it fried. Which it did not.

There was a glimmer of hope when a small patch of white squiggle invaded the yellow yolk and folded into a raggedy-edged ruffle.

“Look, it's starting to cook,” I gushed to the bougainvillea as it tilted its purple blossoms away from me, likely afraid it would catch whatever I had that provoked me to be squatting on burning cement on one of the hottest days of the year.

The sun momentarily seared the edges of the egg white but stopped short of fluffing the ruffle. While sweat glistened from every exposed spot of skin on my body, my egg did not even display a sign of heat exhaustion. The egg simply was not cooking.

I had read that frying an egg in a pan on the sidewalk would conduct the heat, making it more likely to fry, though at a much higher temperature than the average sidewalk gets from the sun. So I knew going in that the odds were slim. But it didn't matter. I just wanted to make it right with the child who promised herself she would try it someday.