In the ongoing saga of being an overextended working mom with too little time on her hands, comes the tale of the Passover eggs. You see, about a week ago, my daughter muttered something about having to bring an important item to the Passover seder her class was going to be celebrating at Hebrew School. The problem was, she couldn’t remember what it was. As I made a mental note to find the mysterious letter that contained the requested items, I went back to cooking my once a week traditional Sunday night dinner and completely forgot about our important obligation to her class. That is, until today.
As I was sitting paying bills, I started writing on the back of a letter from the synagogue and then decided to turn the paper over and read what was there. Of course, it was the directive about what Passover product we needed to contribute to her class. So what did we get? Raw eggs. Yup, raw eggs. And so, even though I had a meeting in Manhattan in less than an hour, I high tailed it to Gristedes, slapped down $3.89 for a carton of Farmland’s Best, checked my gas gauge – I was running dangerously low on fuel – and decided, “Heck, I’ll make it,” and raced over to the school to make the drop.
Out of breath, I burst into the religious school office with a proud grin on my face since I had spared myself from an embarrassing situation by finally picking up what they had requested. With my carton raised high above my head, I triumphantly declared, “I brought the eggs! I mean, these are Rebecca’s eggs.” To which the religious school director replied, “Oh, we needed those last week. That’s when the catering staff boils them so that we can have them for our seder this afternoon”
“Wait a second,” I exclaimed. “You mean to tell me that I went out of my way to bring you eggs and now you’re saying I’m already too late?”
“It’s okay, we can use the eggs for cooking class – you can never have enough eggs,” she nervously replied as she attempted to convince me to relinquish the carton. Though I contemplated taking them back home, she pried the eggs from my vice grip, I parted ways with my purchase, hopped in my car, raced to Manhattan, returned at 5:30 pm, took my husband to the train station, raced back home to get my daughter from Hebrew School and then, the second I was about to pull into our driveway, my child exclaimed, “I left my clarinet at Hebrew School!” Translation…you need to turn back around and get it.
And so, with my gas tank hovering on empty, we drove back to the school for the third time that day, my daughter raced inside to pick up her instrument and I sat there wondering if I could put in dibs for what I’d like to bring to the class seder next year. I mean, if she had asked me to bring macaroons or matzoh, we probably wouldn’t have had this problem, but not me. I’m the mother they ask to bring the most perishable item on the menu. While everyone else brings food they can eat immediately upon breaking that Kosher for Passover seal, they see my name and say, let’s make the harried mom bring eggs. While we’re at it, why don’t they just have me cook up a 20 pound turkey just for kicks?
Okay, it’s not that I’m bitter or anything, I just don’t want to bring something to my kid’s class that they actually can’t use. Frankly, I could’ve used them at my house but now, some teen cooking class is going to get to use my eggs for some culinary creation that my daughter and I will never get to partake in. I guess I shouldn’t be so steamed over my latest attempt to be a conscientious mom. In the end, the moral of this story is it’s perfectly okay to donate your eggs even if you don’t know who is going to receive them. You can file that one under, ironic but true. Now I’m off to get gas and buy eggs. All in a day’s work.
Role Mommy 3.0