I took the kids to the city Easter-egg hunt. It took place on Holy Saturday, but I have a complicated and Jesuitical theory to explain why that was OK.
All the eggs in the city hunt are plastic. Most contain little stickers or rubber trinkets; some contain numbers, which can be turned in for little prizes; and one egg, the golden egg, is redeemable for the Grand Prize–a bicycle or something. It’s a madcap, five-minute event, with people running everywhere.
As happened last year, Tina only picked up one egg. She got her one egg, put it in her basket, and stared at it happily–unable to comprehend why everyone else was rushing around to get more eggs. Her aunt took pity on her and had one of the cousins share, so Tina came home with two eggs.
When we got home, Tina began insisting that I cook her eggs. She had already opened the eggs and discovered the rubber trinkets; the other kids tried explaining that the eggs are plastic; but she only became more insistent that I should cook her eggs. So finally I distracted her, hid her plastic eggs, and cooked up a couple of regular eggs.
And after that she was happy. No wonder she didn’t understand the rush to gather more and more eggs: who could eat that many?
[P.S. I think the election of a Jesuit to the papacy elevates my rationalization to a “papal theory.”]
