My great grandmother on my dad's side had seven daughters and seven sons. Her dying wish was that the family not drift apart. As a result, every year there was a Gathering Of The Tribes where far-flung 'bl00s would gather their Winnebagos in Claunch, New Mexico to eat fried catfish. Do me a solid and look up Claunch, NM in Google Maps. Check it out in satellite view for full effect. Know that if you water a tree with the well water there it'll die... and the only water is well water. Also know that my father is the first 'bl00 to go to college in that entire extended family tree. ANYWAY

We didn't have to do that much, but we had a mini Gathering of the Tribes at Easter, 4th of July, Thanksgiving and Christmas where my family and my aunt's extended brood would show up at my grandparents' house to eat a dead animal, Stove Top with egg in it and green jello full of carrot shavings. My mother, in protest, would always drag her feet so that we would show up two hours after the meal was served with a veggie tray that nobody wanted.

Easter was particularly weird because my cousins babysat me and my sister, while I babysat my cousin's kids. There were four of them less than five years apart, but the youngest was six years older than me. My grandparents occupied a walled compound on the Santa Fe Trail just up the road from Chimayo, the inspiration for The Milagro Beanfield War. The easter egg hunt happened in a concrete and rock courtyard surrounded by eight feet of gray cindeblock with a small patch of lawn and a giant satellite dish.

And strawberry plants. Strawberry plants that never bore fruit.

So it was pretty much up to me and my sister to provide the "entertainment" of easter, at least until my cousins started popping out kids. We didn't hunt for eggs, we didn't hunt for candy. We hunted for fossils that had been candy when my cousins were our age:

You see, they were individually wrapped. And they were like a jellybean coating with marshmallow on the inside. Or, they had been when my cousin Larry was a kid. Back when my grandmother had somehow secured a deal on the free world supply of the horrible things. Because they never, ever stopped.

Larry graduated high school when I was in first grade.

So it didn't really matter whether we found everything or not. And the hiders would often find eggs that had been left there years before, and just let them be... someone would find them eventually. Cruellest of ironies, once my cousins' kids were ambulatory my cousins took it upon themselves to resupply my grandmother's candy horde with treats that post-dated the fall of Saigon. So those ungrateful little shits never had to smile around fuckin' petrified marshmallow with a belly full of lime and carrot jello. By the time I had a taste of a Brach's Candy Egg the way Papa Brach intended it to be eaten I was well past the joy of finding one hidden behind the slew motor of a K-band satellite dish. So I hid them for my little cousins, ungrateful little shits that had no idea how good they had it.

I hid the fuck out of those eggs. I'll bet some of them are still there.

*

As far as the challenge in the Great El Segundo Pigfuck of 2014, it should be pointed out that "hiding" is mostly a formality when one is dealing with toddlers. That said, yeah, we were unimpressed by the spirit of the event. At least leave the grass unmowed for a couple weeks, FFS.

And here I sit, insomniac, with an easter basket to my left and scattered plastic eggs all throughout the living room. We didn't hide them very hard, but she'll have to look.

I'm totally psyched.