I asked Magda, my Personal assistant to make me an egg sarnie today. I thought about the last egg she had fried and how difficult it was to eat because the yoke was burst and cooked solid and the edges of the egg were frazzled. I raced into the kitchen just as she was about to crack the egg in the pan. ‘Before you crack the egg can I just …..’
Stopping me mid-sentence with a menacing stare she shouts “look I can only do the egg in the way I know how” and turns her back to me. She cracks the egg shell high, well higher than I would have and higher than I wanted her to, but the egg withstands its freefall and holds its own.
I am already planning refusing to eat it but still keeping my calm. “Yes but I am trying to tell you how I like my eggs because the last time you cooked one it…”
She turns fast like a gunslinger with the fish-splice “look, if I try to cook the egg in your way it will be worse” and gives me another more menacing and lingering stare.
“Now, no, no, you listen to me” I glare back at her; “if you don’t let me tell you how I like things done then you will continue to do things in the way you want to do things. Is this not the same as you going to work at a factory and saying to the boss “stop telling me how you would like things done, I will do it in the way that I know how and you will just have to accept it”.
She puts a childish pet lip on, “you always think that your way is best don’t you”
I’m quick, “no I just know how I like my fucking eggs”
More lippage, “you know something, shall I tell you something Harvey” she says in a softer voice; ”I feel sorry for the people who have worked for you, if you treat other people like you have treated me. I’m trying my best but it just isn’t good enough, it could never be good enough could it”.
I have had enough; I spin my wheelchair around and speed away shouting halfway down the passage “watch the fucking egg”.
By the time I have reached my computer I’ve repeated numerous forms of “How shit you treat the people who help you” and start wondering whether it is true.
I am startled as I hear her coming along the passage.
She brings me a toasted sandwich on a plate! Two slices of toasted bread betwixt which I can see the frazzled remains of an egg, the edges black and crispy, and in my mind’s eye, the yolk hard and dry; just the way I hate them!
I silently refuse to raise my hand to accept her offer to place her ‘sandwich’ in my hand “No thanks” I say and turn back to my computer pretending to concentrate on my writing. She intrudes my space from the side, “I am sorry about that Harvey but you misunderstood what I said, I thought you were telling me not to break the egg too high in case the yolk broke and mixed with the white part. I know I can do it from the height I was going to crack it into the pan without breaking the yolk you see”.
I give her my Clint Eastwood stare, “Don’t tell me I didn’t understand because I do understand; it’s you that doesn’t understand because you didn’t let me finish my sentence. If you had you would have learned how I like my eggs to be cooked. instead you have burned and wasted an egg, denied me the right to have my egg cooked in the way I like it, made me feel like a cunt for having a preference and as a consequence I will feel inhibited from asking you next time. But I’ll tell you what, I will have my fucking eggs done the way that I want them and if you can’t do it then fair enough I will have to find someone who can. I’m done with this shit; I don’t do it any more”.
She throws the toastie back on the plate and tries a trump narrative, she puts her hand on my shoulder and moves her face closer towards mine with her lips curled into a sarcastic smile “erm I think you’ve over reacted a bit don’t you, it’s only an egg Harvey”!
I have to stop myself from laughing but then realise it is irony that I am nearly laughing at.
I can’t hold back any longer and retort, “it’s only an egg, yes you’re right, but it is such a symbolic fucking egg my friend and our conversation about the egg represents so many conversations that I’ve had with you and others. You want to control the way the cooking is done don’t you, because you think you have the right to tell me what I want, need and like. And like a dog I should wag my tail and be grateful for whatever you give me, that’s what you want isn’t it”? I carry on “And when I resist and attempt to assert myself, you threaten me with; it will only ‘end up worse’ or attempt to frame me as some kind of miserable employer.
I can see by her shocked face that she has recognised that I am angry; I feel my face flushed and I fear losing control.
She pats me on the shoulder and hits me with the trump of all trump cards; the big one, “Oh Harvey come on stop being so serious, I was only joking, can’t you take a joke”.
I am speechless. I murmur to myself “I should have seen it coming”
And on it goes.
