I am trying to teach my kids to be low maintenance. Mostly because every high-maintenance person I know is either 1) unhappy or 2) bent on making other people unhappy. So if something isn’t ‘ just so’ or ‘exactly perfect‘ or ‘what we expected,’ I try to make a point of shrugging it off, so my kids can learn from my modeling.
So Varmint and Critter and I are in a restaurant called The Frog House for breakfast this morning, when the waitress puts a plate of Eggs Benedict in front of me. I love Eggs Benedict…but only when the eggs are poached mostly hard. A little bit of egg yolk is like gravy, a lot of it is the precursor to retching for me. This dish….this dish was so raw the protein string was clearly visible. You know the protein string? The little pre-chick umbilical cord? That little clear and white bit of …
…ugh…I am ready to puke just writing about it.
So there I am, faced with certain dry heaves, and my kids are watching my every move.
I poked holes in the yolks, let the raw, runny, goop run onto the plate, scooted my Benedict out of its path and did my best to act like nothing was wrong.
I could feel Varmint’s eyes on me. On my plate. I waited for the comment. I took a bite, followed it quickly with hot coffee and thought of balloons and puppy kisses and yellow daisies.
It was the yellow daisy thought that did it. Ever noticed that those are the same color as raw egg yolk? Trust me. Exact color and hue. I couldn’t eat much more.
Look, the good news is that the fact that I didn’t snarf down a meal as per usual escaped the watchful eyes of my munchkins, and I didn’t embarrass myself with public vomiting.
But the question I find myself asking is this: Since I WANTED to send it back, and I probably would have had my kids not been present, does that mean I really AM high maintenance? My Captain would have eaten it, even if it had eggshell and rat turds in it. He’s that low maintenance….he’s a firefighter. He’s had to be.
I’m having a really hard time with this. I can’t re-define myself at this late stage in the game.
And you can be darn sure My Captain has no desire to be married to that, either!
Mama Boe 
I have to tell ya lady..there is no harm in sending food back that can give you salmonella poision. That would not have been high maint..THAT is keeping yourself from getting SICK from someone who does not know how to cook food right!
Just my opinion.
It’s actually called the CHALAZAE. And every egg has two of them. They are not actually like umbilical cords at all, in fact, they’re really nothing more than bungee cords that are attached at each pole to hold the yolk in the center. Every wonder why when you hard boil an egg the yolk isn’t just sitting at the bottom? Thank your chalazae (well, the EGG’S chalazae, if YOU have chalazae, then you should probably seek medical attention of some sort, or maybe Ripley’s believe it or not, or anyone but me, really…
Ohhhhh… Eggs!! There is a very FINE LINE of what I can eat when it comes to eggs! Thanks for making me throw up in my mouth! Blech!!! I never order anything but scrambled in a restaurant – just to be safe!
Let’s see. You don’t like to have your eggs Benedict cooked correctly. that’s neither high or low maintenance. You didn’t send them back. Low maintenance. If you had told the server and everyone in the kitchen that you were going to insist on having your eggs cooked incorrectly AND you went into the kitchen to cook them yourself? That’s high maintenance.