I can't find it

What can't I find?  Anyone who knows me, knows that I can't find anything most of the time.  This post, however, is about a tradition in our family that always has everyone saying "I can't find it!"  It is the grand Easter egg hunt at Grandma and Grandpa Packard's house.  

The Easter bunny of my childhood was really a very clever bunny.  He not only brought us a basket of goodies but he teased us by hiding our baskets too.  One time I found my basket hanging from a string down into a heating vent.  Once my sister Laura found her basket without its handle tied up underneath the piano.  One was wired to the curtain rod under the curtain.  We loved it.

When we got older instead of baskets we got a chocolate egg.  The bunny, who, of course, was our clever mom, really got devious.  We would find our egg sewed into a pillow on the couch or inside a hollowed out book slipped back into its place on the shelf.  We found one egg underneath a chair or I should say underneath and inside the chair.

Over the years my mother has hidden hundreds of eggs.  My brothers and sisters married and had children who grew up, married, and had children who all come to Grandma and Grandpa's house to search for Easter eggs. Those of us who live away alway struggle mightily to get back home at Easter to enjoy the fun that mom's tradition has created.

Visualize this, 30 to 40 people crowded into a not so large kitchen and family room all searching for their egg.  The only rule to remember is nothing is out of bounds! 

 

Let me recount some of the stellar hiding places to date.  Chocolate eggs have been found inside of a grapefruit, banana, stuffed animal, a ball of yarn, in a roll which was in a bag which was sealed at the store, in an undisturbed bag of potatoe chips, in the peanut butter, in the Miracle Whip which was in the fridge, in a can on the shelf which was opened and emptied from the bottom.  They have been found inside the base of lamps, stuffed up into the water dispenser of the fridge, in the waffle iron (we had a hard time figuring out whose egg that was), in the VHS player (the DVD slot just doesn't lent itself sizewise), in the tool chest, work boots, sweaty hat, in a potted plant just under the roots.  One egg was molded around one of the canes in dad's collection.  There was the egg zipped into a baggie and lowered into a can of paint, the egg that was put into the bottom of the Big Gulp of the very person that was looking for it, the egg that was stuffed into a canister light behind the light bulb, the egg that was taped to a ceiling fan blade that was moving around and around as the search went on and on.  One poor person looked long after everyone had finished.  Come to find out his egg had been with him the whole time just inside his pocket!

So now you know that "I can't find it" really means "I can't find it" at my mother's house on Easter.