Boiled Eggs or How Not to be a Chicken

This morning, over yahoo chat, my good friend V. asked me how to boil an egg. Brave survivor of last week's stomach flu and a stranger to bland foods, my thirty-two-year-old pal has conquered the making of white rice; yet it seems that eggs remain a complete mystery! As I pondered my answer; how many minutes does one boil an egg before it cracks? How to check whether or not the egg is ready? ...Vaquely remembered something about spinning it...yet, how does one spin a boiling hot egg?; thoughts unrelated to the gracefully twirling, hopefully uncracked egg began to flutter in my restless yet utterly useless, as of late, brain.

V. lives alone and seems perfectly happy with it, except the time when he needs to boil an egg. I do not live alone. I live with my husband and my son. The former is well aware of how to boil an egg which leaves me, a slothful mother of one, without an immediate need of updating that knowledge. The latter still needs to be convinced that the stove is far from the most exciting place in the three thousand square foot house.

But back to V. and his egg. Besides discussing the aftermath of gastrointestinal problems, we managed to touch upon the subject of marriage...The subject, as it always does, came up suddenly..."Did hell freeze over!?" inquired V.? Since I do not have any windows next to my desk at work, and I did not think that V's inquiry warrantied my burging into my co-worker Andrea's office (given that out of utter boredom I already picked at least fifteen random conversations with her and have clearly reached my limit of random and her limit of tolerance) I could not make sure what was going on in Hell. I could, however, tell you what was going on with R. College where I work. Nothing much. As usual.
Since it was not established that Hell has been covered by ice, it was safe to conclude that V.'s interest in marriage did not change since last time i asked - a day or two ago. Why this opposition to marriage?! Well, in his own words, he does not know himself yet and if he does not know himself how can he share his life with someone? I think that at a rather intimidating six feet and five inches my friend V is one giant chicken! Marriage is not for the weakest of hearts (and neither is the honeymoon. :) Though knowing V., the one part of marriage he would not mind would be the initial getaway. Undoubtebly, (God be gentle with the poor girl's heart!) on the way back, he would demand separate apartments, aka his own space.
I do not dare tell V. that were he not such a big chicken, he would have someone to make him a boiled egg and make sure he eats it. He would have someone to take his temperature and yell at him for not taking care of himself (other than his parents over the phone!) And I definitely keep quiet about the possibility of someone bringing him this egg to bed (particularly if it has not been very long since the honeymoon)... I keep quiet and my thoughts perform their quotidian narcissitic dance and twirl back to myself and A. and thoughts of days long gone; lazy sunday mornings when breakfast was the last thing on our minds...We would stay in bed for what seemed as endless days and talk of baby names, traveling, moving to Europe and then we would not talk for a while..and talk again...I remember that sunlight would stealthly leak into the room and betray our denial that there was in fact a world outside and that not everyone was in bed on weekend mornings/afternoons (something I very well know these days!). If I were to share this memory with him right now, he would tell me that I have an overly active imagination (even if i had a quarter of a penny everytime I heard that, I would not need to live in my mother's house in a wealthy suburn of Boston...) But one does not long for what one has imagined....human mind longs for things that have passed and could have still been if life did not get in the way.