Haraval's Blog

“Deviled eggs are pretentious hardboiled eggs.”

I wasn’t sure what an appropriate response would be to that declaration, so I took another bite of my bagel, an everything bagel stuffed with turkey, egg, and cheese. “Hear me out,” Chris continued. “We take the humble hardboiled egg, cut it in half, replace the yolk with some yolk paste, and suddenly we’re high class citizens. We take its natural interior and perform adultery on it! Who are we, to desecrate an egg?”

“That’s not adultery.”

“What? That’s a prime example of adultery.”

“A prime example of adultery would be, I guess, Bill Clinton, as he’s the first person to come to mind, at least to my mind, when you mention adultery. I don’t know what word you were trying to use, but I don’t think you meant adultery. I know you’ve read the Bible. There are a couple verses on the subject.”

“I have, but the Holy Spirit doesn’t exactly help me retain it.”

Out the window I saw a beam of light wash the sidewalk, the creator of said beam of course a blinding sun, handing out sunshine to passersby like Santa with gifts to children. 

The door to the store opened. A man covered by a beige coat with several hefty jackets and a hoodie under it, and anything below that layer indiscernible, walked in. With dull chains swaying on his black pants, he drifted to the counter, the line empty. The cashier asked the man what he’d like. He simply looked at the cashier, then moved himself to the table behind Chris and me. He unzipped the first coat, and from a pocket in the jacket resting within, pulled out a bunch of brown nuts. “Hey,” Chris said to me, “those are hazelnuts, right?”

“No idea.”

The cashier watched vaguely but didn’t seem to care. Perhaps he found this man amusing. It was tough to tell. Anyway, the three of us watched the jacket man. He unzipped the next jacket, and from within it pulled out a bowl, carefully making sure its contents didn’t fall out by covering its top with his free hand. Now out on the table, the bowl’s contents were visible, showing potato chips and orange peels, a strange combination of similar shapes but different colors. With hazelnuts, potato chips, and orange remnants all on deck, the man had his meal ready. He started with a hazelnut, placing the shell into the back of his mouth and cracking it open. He disposed of the broken shell by placing them into the pocket of his now exposed hoodie. 

He was likely homeless but didn’t have the odor representative of the homeless. I wasn’t sure what to think. Chris began to talk to the man, neglecting his bagel. “Hey, Jacket Man. Jacket Man, what’s with the nuts! Go order a bagel if you wanna sit here!”

Jacket Man turned. “Who is Jacket Man? Who is that? If you meant me, my name is Bill, not Jacket Man, despite the number of alarming jackets. I mean, the alarming number of jackets, on me. On my body. What is it that you want? For me to go on my way, neglecting my primal need for nuts?”

“Who has a primal need for nuts? What does that even mean? I mean, I know what it means, but what I’m getting at is, why do you find it necessary to consume a nut, of all things? We have a primal need for water and food, not specifically for nuts, especially hazelnuts. I have never actually seen a hazelnut in person.”

“Without the hazelnut, you wouldn’t have Nutella or Ferrero Rocher truffles. Underdog of its industry, the hazelnut rests in the shadows, continually pumping out tasty dessert items for the unsuspecting and the ungrateful.” He paused. “And by unsuspecting and ungrateful, of course I am referring to you!”

Before Chris could reply, I jumped in. “I agree, the hazelnut is the underdog of all nuts. Second to the peanut lies the almond, then the pistachio, walnut, pecan, cashew,  chestnut… and finally, maybe, the hazelnut, in terms of raw nut. And then becoming a spread or a dessert, it becomes an addicting substance, a tantalizing force that takes the general population by storm, jumping up in popularity, though its true source, the hazelnut, is unrecognized, therefore an underdog. But when we get down to it, if a hazelnut requires such a transformation, to become a desired spread or a dessert, to get recognition, does it itself, in its rawest form, deserve the recognition? The manipulated hazelnut surpasses the hazelnut, undoubtedly, but that means we respect its manipulation, not the original.”

“Like the hardboiled egg, no doubt,” Chris hopped in. “I eat a hardboiled egg for breakfast when I feel like I don’t deserve anything better, like cereal or pancakes. It’s a byproduct of self-hatred. It’s an item for those who’ve given up, honestly speaking. However, when you cut it in half, replace the yolk with some yolk paste, suddenly we’re dining like billionaires. The deviled egg is for champions while the boiled egg is for losers, despite such a minor difference between the two. Would I ever eat a hardboiled egg because I know it can become a deviled egg? See, I wouldn’t, that same logic applying to eating a hazelnut simply because it has the potential of becoming Nutella. It doesn’t make any sense.”

Bill’s stare lingered on us, before dissolving, his attention back to the matter at hand: his nuts. The potato chips and orange peels sat idly by, looking on as bystanders, as he continued to crack his nuts. Chris and I continued to eat, and left after we had both finished.