The Bonze and the Wind Egg

The universe decided to make up for a hideous Tuesday-through-Thursday with an extremely excellent Friday and Saturday.

Jerkface did not show up (which does worry me a little - the manager said his parents had called and said he had stuff to do, but I’m still going to fret about it), but Bonze and Ken’ichi did. And Bonze gave me a present that made my whole week.

As he was coming in the door for class, he said in Japanese, “Oh! I forgot. I have an egg.” He stopped and dug around in his bag, and pulled out a tiny tupperware box, which he opened. Inside was a tiny egg - a little bigger than a quail egg - carefully tucked into in some tissues. He said, “It’s for you,” and took the egg out of the box and handed it to me, then put the box away.

I said in English, “An egg! Thank you so much! …is it a chicken egg?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Yay! Thank you!” (”Yay” is my generic happy word.) Having no suitable container for a tiny egg, I went over and made a little tissue-nest for it on the shelf. We sat down to play a game which required splitting the ABC cards between us.

The “e” card has a picture of an egg on it. Ken’ichi ended up with that one. Picking the card up to admire it, Bonze said, “You have the egg! Can I trade you for it?” Eggs are clearly very important to Bonze.

As he was putting his shoes on at the end of class I asked him, “Is it from Bonze’s chicken?” There were little stains on the egg, which along with its size suggested to me it hadn’t come from a store.

“No, no.”

“Mama’s chicken? Papa’s chicken? Grandmother’s chicken?” He shook his head, very shy about the egg, and left.

I asked the manager why he thought Bonze had given me a tiny egg. He said, “Ohhh. Bonze’s family keeps chickens. It must be one of their eggs. Oh, no! He probably thought it would hatch and you’d have a baby chicken!”

I said, “It’s an intimidating present! It has Bonze’s heart in it!”

“Taihen da na!”

Though I’m sure he was underestimating Bonze’s intelligence, here. (It’s unfortunately easy to do, because he’s so quiet and tiny. Jerkface knows better!) A kid whose family raises chickens is probbbably going to know that an undersized egg he’s carried around in his bag is not going to hatch. I also assume he has the sense not to give an egg he thinks might hatch to someone who may not be prepared for parenthood.

Nonetheless, I’m not sure what to do with Bonze’s egg. Should I eat it? I googled around, and it looks like it’s safe to eat these kinds of eggs. But then, Bonze did have it in his bag for at least two hours, and it was another hour and a half before I could get it home. Is the egg safe to eat? I’d feel really bad about just tossing it…

I feel very flattered that Bonze gave me an egg from his beloved chickens, but it really does feel like an intimidating gift.

The rest of the last couple days:

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(Crossposted to SarahPin.com, Dreamwidth, and LiveJournal. You can leave comments at whichever.)

Consumption

The variety of the contents of my fridge has a direct effect on my mood. Today I opened it and saw that I had fish, ramen, broccoli, eggs, fava beans, tomato sauce, cheese, cake, strawberries, soy milk, guava nectar, whiskey, chocolate syrup, margarine, and orange juice, and was so rendered immediately happy. And then I ate the strawberries and half the cheese, thus decreasing the variety of the fridge, and so my happiness upon the next occasion I open it.

I did go to the tea stall in the grocery and buy Presumably Quality Tea. I got a small package of 500-yen loose-leaf stuff, which smells very smoky and serious, but doesn’t actually have a lot of taste. To use Terminology, it lacks body. So I’ll probably buy some other kind of expensive tea next time. The tea lady was not snotty, as I had predicted - she got very enthusiastic explaining the tea stamp card to me. Evidently it gets you some free tea when you fill it up. In general, when Japanese commerce inflicts stamp cards on me, the cashiers look at me uncomfortably, say “stamp card desu,” and hope I don’t ask any questions. Maybe she hadn’t had many customers that day.

(Crossposted to SarahPin.com, Dreamwidth, and LiveJournal. You can leave comments at whichever.)