Egging It On

When we were first given this assignment, my mind began running in about 100 different directions. I had no idea what I was going to do with this egg. Pretty much I drove home after class with the egg rolling around in a coffee mug in my car as to make sure I wasn't going to break it. And as it rolled around and dinged each side of the mug as I drove, I began to become more and more aggravated by this egg. All I could think about was how some fellow student was somehow going to hatch a Gremlin from the egg, and I couldn't think of a damn thing to do with it. It was only the first class, and I was already smelling defeat, (and no, it wasn't just the increasing stench of a rotting egg in the terribly hot weather). Pretty much, I was getting more aggravated every second, and it became even more infuriating that I was allowing something so asinine as an egg makes me this angry.

So, to appease myself, I decided to make my project an "out of sight, out of mind" type of ordeal. I decided to place the egg into a mini cake box, set it on the break room table at work, and just leave it. It couldn't bother me if it weren't around to taunt me with its evil egginess. However, I decided to delve a little deeper, and make it into an experiment. I realized that I was letting something get to me that shouldn't. It was just an egg. Now, what would happen if I took something that all my co-worker probably see every day, and put it into a completely new place? I added a sign that said "Do not touch the egg! Seriously! Do not touch the egg" for two reasons. One was so no one would, hopefully, touch it and break it and two because the sign gave the egg a sense of importance. Everyone's touched an egg, but when you're told not to touch the egg, it makes you want to touch the egg. I also added a sign that said, "But why is it here?" I was curious as to what people thought when they saw the egg. I left a pad of paper next to the signs and allowed people to write down their thoughts. I got two pages worth. My favorite had to be the fact our store manager happened to be on vacation in Cancun at the time of this, so someone wrote "Krystal's way of spying on us while she's on vacation." Others were more along the lines of "thinking outside of the box." The rest were the typical "to eat."

The best part of it was that I didn't tell anyone that I put it on the break room table and left it for the week. So everyone began speculating as to who put it there and why. There were some funny theories. It was just insightful that something as miniscule as an egg sitting on a table made people so curious. At the very end, I printed out another sheet with a sign that said "The egg was just an egg. It's meant to make you question something out of the ordinary."

In the end, I'll admit, it's not the most life changing experiment. I didn't do anything crazy with the egg. But it was fun to watch people ponder and gawk at something they probably have a dozen of in their fridges as you read this.