Treasure hunting at the grocer's

“A box without hinges, key or lid, Yet golden treasure inside is hid.”

I hope readers will forgive a fan of J.R.R. Tolkien for quoting one of the riddles Bilbo tries out on Gollum, with the threat of being eaten hanging over him in Gollum’s cave.

But that little section from the “Riddles in the Dark” chapter of “The Hobbit” came to me when I was shopping the other day. Golden treasure, indeed. And more “precious” and expensive by the minute, it seems.

The answer to the riddle, of course, is eggs, or “eggses!” as Gollum says it once he figures it out.

And that little riddle came to my mind as I looked at the newest price of a dozen of these “boxes without hinges.”

I’m not the only one. A lady was standing near me, looking at eggs just like I was, and told me it was the most she had ever paid for eggs – and she said that like a person who had been buying eggs for a while. Then she said something significant.

“But I’m buying them anyway,” she said with a sigh.

And so was I, in spite of the cost. At least, so far. We do love our “eggses,” don’t we? I’ve heard them called hen fruit and cackle berries, but we don’t care what they’re called, do we, folks? And not just for breakfast. They are important ingredients in a lot of dishes.

One of my earliest memories of school mornings revolve around a fried egg, a half strip of bacon and some toast. It was the one positive part of getting out of bed. Oh, there were experiments with oatmeal, but we always came back to eggs.

Personally, I think the first person who thought up that combination of bacon and eggs, should have statues erected and a national holiday in his (or her; who knows it wasn’t a her?) honor.

Now that I’ve waxed almost poetical in my praise of eggs, I’m sure that many of us remember a time when eggs didn’t have it so good. For many years they were considered part of a healthy diet. But then the Food Commandos moved in. Eggs, they shrieked, contained cholesterol. And cholesterol was not simply evil. Even worse than evil, it was not “the in thing,” as more and more folks jumped on the bandwagon.

Soon, eggs were the greatest of all uncool, un-with it and bad for you things on the planet. If you so much as whispered, “egg,” you might fall over dead instantly. People were afraid to walk past the egg display in the store. And while I admit that’s (maybe) an exaggeration, some people were getting downright ridiculous about it.

Eventually, though, eggs were “rehabilitated.” That means they could be eaten, in moderation, without harming you. In fact, they could even be good for you.

Me? Well, all during the egg scare, I kept eating eggs, and so did a lot of other egg lovers. And I ain’t dead yet. Frankly, I hope to continue eating them.

Well, that is, I’ll keep eating them if I can afford them. I hate to think that one day I might have to say good-bye to eggs, the same way I said good-bye to steak. Steak has gotten to the point that I feel like I have to take out a loan to get some.

But there’s hope – for eggs, not steak. I saw a report on one of the news programs, which said supplies might start catching up with demand again in the next couple of months, bringing prices down. I hope so.

So let’s not have any more bird flu. Or Covid-caused transportation problems. Or invasions from Mars. Whatever has been causing this. Let the doggone Martians get their own eggses, I mean, eggs.

•••••

I feel like saying something about the national championship football game played last week. I wasn’t surprised in the least by who won. I was pretty sure who would end up in the winner’s circle.

But the game itself was a disappointment. Think about it. The two semifinal games had been everything a football fan could hope for. The fans of none of the teams could fully relax until the clock showed zeros all across. Oboy, people were thinking, wait until the final game. It’s gonna be a doozy.

Except it wasn’t a doozy. It was a dozer. One of the teams forgot to show up or something. It soon became apparent that this was not a football game, it was a slaughter. Were these really the best two teams in the land?

Methinks that the championship games in the future need to get better, or the only people watching will be the players’ family members who couldn’t make it to the game.

Okay, I’ve said my bit.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: David Nichol is a freelance writer who retired from the Times-Herald. He can be contacted at nicholdb@cablelynx.com.)