The following post was written by Gap Year Fellow Lauren Jurgensen.
Taking our map off the wall made the reality of leaving set in.
The blue and white dishes were put away in cardboard boxes, and the room was starting to look unfamiliar. The groceries we hadn’t eaten sat in a single, brown Harris Teeter bag. Except for two things: a chilled carton of milk and some eggs.
It was Sophie’s idea.
She had mentioned Jimmy Fallon’s “egg roulette” bit a few times over the past two weeks. It was our last night together. Instead of moping, we recovered a large pot from a box, filled it with water, and set the burner on “hi.” After jamming out to approximately one-third of Taylor Swift’s “Fearless” album, into the pot went thirteen eggs.
Klaus, Sophie, Thilini, and I sat on the clammy kitchen floor across from one another, the beige egg carton in the center. I volunteered to go first. I grabbed an egg and fervently hurled it towards my cranium. The yolk trickled down my face and started the quick process of drying in my hair. Small chucks of partially boiled egg found their way onto my shirt and into my lap. Sophie went next. Her egg similarly left a yolky mess around her head and yielded a few quasi-cooked egg pieces.
Egg roulette is played by hardboiling a bunch of eggs and keeping three or four of them uncooked. From here, you go around in a circle, pick a random egg, and proceed to chuck the egg at yourself. The idea is that you will probably hit yourself with a boiled one and the uncooked eggs will be few and far between, meaning you would have a minimal mess and maximum fun!
This didn’t work out for us.
After Sophie’s egg, we realized that our hardboiled eggs were not entirely cooked. We picked out four again and returned to the pot of water. The water was boiling again and the eggs cooked through Green Day, Avril Lavigne, and all of your other 90s favorites. Once we were certain they were cooked, we placed them in the freezer to cool off. My patience was already growing thin. I wanted so badly to play this game.
Finally, I thought to myself, now is the time. Klaus had to go do something, but Thilini, Sophie, and I all made our way back to our respective places in the kitchen floor. This time Thilini went first. She catapulted the taupe egg straight into her forehead. No yolk.
Our cooking worked.
Eagerly we progressed through the rest of the eggs, creating a runny mess all over our kitchen. We started throwing the small pieces and ensuring that every last piece of egg was at some point either in the air, on one of us, or on the ground. However, we saved the last egg. I shook it to hear if it was uncooked and to my exuberant enthusiasm, it was.
This egg was for Klaus.
Klaus is kind of squeamish and was not originally down with the egg roulette thing. I guess I can kind of understand not feeling the need to throw eggs at yourself.
We made a plan. Knowing he would be back shortly, I grabbed the last egg and went to wash off my hands. Thilini, Sophie, and I were crowding by the door. We were going to distract him and ambush him with the egg when he came in. Our plans were foiled when the egg made a deathly leap from my tiny, baby hands and splatted onto our cursed kitchen floor that was now entirely decorated with light brown egg shells, white chunky egg, and yellow yolk. Not being someone who accepts defeat, I quickly rushed in for the egg and gathered as much egg as I could back into my hands. I would dare say that I had about 75% of that egg back into my hands. The waiting game started. Klaus informed us that he boarded a bus back to our apartment at 12:07 AM.
I should have peed before I took on the task of holding an egg yolk with my bare hands. Hindsight is twenty-twenty. We paced back and forth, debated our plan, and came close to just throwing the egg away many times. After deciding for sure that it was worth it, we passed the time by dancing to some more 90s hits. I danced with my broken egg while Thilini and Sophie both broke it down. The next time we looked at the clock, it was 12:47. I had been grasping this battered egg yolk in my hands for forty minutes. I was nearly done. The egg kept dripping down my legs and the egg remnants from the earlier fight were tightening and pulling my skin taut.
A knock came to the door, and I felt like a restaurant patron finally being served their food after waiting and anticipating. In through the door came MaryBeth, much to my chagrin. I was let down and tired of holding this stinking egg. My stomach was starting to churn after the smell of the yolky egg saturated my nostrils.
But, another knock came shortly after, and in came Klaus. I was hiding behind a wall, but Thilini and Sophie welcomed him into the egg-splattered apartment.
I clasped my hands tightly together as the yolk disagreed and accommodated the lessening of space by viscously falling to the ground. I couldn’t throw the egg at him yet because he was standing too close to a laptop. Making small talk was aggravating the hell out of me. As soon as he turned around and moved closer to the door, I launched my 5’1 body at him with the egg pulling me forward. It hit his back first, and then found his hair, face, and neck. Triumph. We did it. Fulfillment, gratification, happiness, pride, all of these emotions were racing through my body.
This was our last night here at UNC before departing for our gap years. Coming into the Summer Intensive, I was scared. I was scared that I was the only one who didn’t have anything figured out. I was scared that my gap year wouldn’t fall into place. These fears were quickly ameliorated when I realized I was not alone.
My fellows have been a uniquely supportive group of people who I am incredibly thankful to know. Our egg roulette game was a microcosm of our time together at the Summer Intensive. We are determined, slow to anger (thanks for not getting mad, Klaus), and share a love of laughter that crushes our fears even when we do things that are out of our comfort zone.
It was an eggsquisite two weeks.