Sure as eggs is eggs

Today’s post has little to do with Japan but it is a public information warning for any of you who buy eggs on a regular basis. Anyone who knows me, will know that I am not the most tidy of people; when I was clearing my flat to move here, it was noted by my sisters that even my empty flat somehow looked messy. So, put me in an apartment which would have been described by Fry and Laurie as compact and bijou, and I am likely to struggle to keep it shipshape.

I only really have one room, and a bathroom. Okay, there is the space at the top of the ladder that a younger man than I might call his bedroom, but with my knees, back and ankle it is just a space out of reach. I don’t really have a kitchen either, just a hallway with a sink and two hobs, and then a fridge with a microwave on top of it which is next to the bathroom door. It’s okay, I don’t miss a kitchen at all. There are so many tempting delicacies in Japan, that cooking is reserved for the odd packet of ramen and noodles. But, I did buy eggs. Half a dozen, just in case I needed an emergency fried egg sandwich or a cheeky eggs benedict. Quite a bulky item is half a dozen eggs, so the question was where to keep them. The obvious place on was top of the microwave, which if you remember was perched on top of the fridge.

Now, it is all very well Japanese mobile phones screaming blue murder if there is a slight chance of an earthquake but why is there no warning for much more practical things like where one keeps ones eggs. 

And because Japanese mobile companies don’t provide that service, I will step in. 

WARNING: don’t keep your eggs on top of the fridge. 

WARNING: don’t keep your eggs on top of the fridge. 

It didn’t take an earthquake to teach me the error of my ways, just my overzealous hand when shutting the fridge door. The box rocked, it teetered, it seemed to correct itself, but then, as I thought all was safe, it fell. Not down the front of the fridge, but the down the back, not landing on the strong part of the eggs but on their most fragile, humpty dumptyesque part of the shell. I’m not yolking, the mess was eggstrordinary. (sorry, I shell never pun like that again. Sorry, last one I promise.) There was yolk everywhere, albumen oozed out from beneath the fridge, shell was shattered across the hallway floor. I was going to need all the king’s horses and all the kings men to help me clean up

Now, I didn’t know this, but the backs of fridges can get quite hot. Very hot in fact. In fact, hot enough to cook an egg. Despite the speed that the king’s men and their mounts arrived, my fridge was already cooking up an omelette which then stuck firm to the inner workings of the fridge. It was quite a clean-up operation, let me tell you. I did get it sorted eventually, but let me give you one last piece of advice, if you drop eggs on the floor, don’t ask the king’s horses to help you. Their hooves got egg all through the flat. It is no wonder they couldn’t put poor humpty together again.