My family has a very strange tradition around Easter time. We take one of the colored eggs and write "Fred" on it in marker. The egg then gets passed around the family like a hot potato, being hidden in bags and pockets and the like.

This year I was gotten good. After giving my little brother a ride home on Easter, I checked all around my car and then my messenger bag and coat pockets. Since there was no egg, I figured that he had gotten my mom. Last week, my mom asked if I had found the egg, since she hadn't. We wondered if it had gone to my dad or sister.

Tonight, I got a phone call from my brother, asking if I'd found the egg. It turns out, he had indeed hidden it in my bag, but not in a place I would ever think to look. The bag has a zippered panel around the edge which can be opened to expand the bag by a few inches. I never use it and rarely even think of it, since it is such a small space. That is exactly where he had hidden the egg. It was in sorry shape, given that it was in the vary bottom corner of that panel and my bag gets tossed around quite a bit. There were little bits of eggshell everywhere.

Now, I had noticed a bit of a smell this weekend, but I figured that it was because my waterbottle had spilled in my bag a couple of times. I imagined that it was a bit of mildew from the damp, and sprayed out the inside of the bag. It never occurred to me that little Fred was rotting away in the extender panel.

Janson had a good laugh when we found out what happened, though he was also quite apologetic. Thank God for Lysol. It's a good thing it was I and not Gretchen, as my sister has a deep loathing for the custom. "It's a rotting egg!" she exclaims. Tis true, tis true.

Well, kiddo, you got me this year. Just you wait until next, though. Just you wait.