The simplicity of eggs, and the inelegance of speech

Double A-grade chicken eggs, the staple ingredient of cuisines everywhere, yet the only time of day they ever seem to get any sort of spotlight is during breakfast hours when they're served as the main course. Soufflé, omelet, huevos rancheros.

Prime source of protein, and a core component of the chef's palette of flavor. Despite this, no one ever acknowledges its value as a snack food.

Boiled eggs are perfect. No carbohydrates to worry about, just pure protein and fat content. If you're feeling refined, you can have it soft-boiled, or if you're in a crass mood, you can simply hard-boil it for a distinct woody texture in the yolk.

These days, snack foods are premade and ready-to-eat not unlike military rations. Bagged, sealed, and sold at the front of convenience stores, and filled with preservatives and chemicals to ensure a relatively long shelf life. When it comes to this modern junk, absolutely ever corner is cut to ensure maximum profit. On the contrary, the nature of fresh food requires that they be kept in comparatively-inaccessible refrigerators in the back.

If you think about it, it's not too dissimilar to the human population as a whole. Most people you'll meet on the street or elsewhere lead painfully average lives and shovel down the kind of greasy food you'd expect. Rarely do you ever meet a person who only has a single egg for breakfast and substitutes the rest of his meals for protein shakes. The average diet is laden with excessive vegetable oils, soy lectin, natural flavors, and other chemicals that bog down mental prowess. That's pretty much what the average person eats.

And when you try communicating with these people, it shows.

"The clothes in the restroom, I want them out, and throw the rest of the crap in the wastebag in!"

A voice growls at me in what might as well be a foreign language. You can hear the excess fat and mucus lining his esophagus when he speaks. Since I have misophonia, this particular exchange is just as unpleasant, but I resist the urge to grimace and instead force my expression into a plastic smile.

"Then I want this here... and that there...!"
My mind runs its usual automatic translation processes as my migraine intensifies. I'm in the middle of my usual heavy writing sessions, and every time my train of thought gets interrupted, there's a lingering sense of irritation that settles down the whole of my being.

"What's with that look? That damn expression of yours! You glare at me like that, and I'll beat you to death!"

He's never actually followed up on threats like these. It must be the Burger King or Taco Bell he's had that's talking. My gaze is directed towards a somewhat bulky mass of muscle and fat with little in terms of a functional brain. No, I'm lying. I can't look straight into his eyes. I'm looking squarely at his temple instead.

That being said, I can probably understand how anyone else would easily get that impression looking at my face. Not even I can recognize my own appearance in the mirror, and from what others say I can only guess that I'm someone who's of a decently youthful, boyish appearance, and has a resting bitch face. To be honest, I don't know what expression I should make, but whatever I do, my eyes seem to accuse whoever it is they're looking at with an unspoken fury, despite whatever I might be thinking.

He raises his voice slightly and growls.

"You heard all of that, right? If you're so smart, repeat what I just told you!"

My headache tightens more, and as usual my tinnitus flares up again. I can feel dimples from the forced grin I'm wearing form as I open my mouth.

"You want the clothes hung up, and the rest of the dirty laundry in the basket substituted."

"Stop talking to me in your smarmy-ass English!"

Before I realize it, there's a giant slab of skin-colored flesh approximately 5 centimeters from my eyes. My lungs freeze up. If I make any sudden movements or breathe loudly, his hands will go for my throat and he'll try to choke me out, or worse. I can feel my face flushing with a dry sweat.

With wild animals like these, you have to have some sort of plan when you attempt to defend yourself. Any incorrect sudden movements will get you killed. In my case, my insufficient education in judo or karate isn't enough to help me here. We're in a cramped hallway with slop thrown about left or right. It's impossible to know if a punch thrown from this position will incapacitate this one. At best, it might stun him for a couple of segments, but I don't want to think about how he'll try to reprise, or if he's expecting a punch to be thrown to begin with.

Fortunately he calms down, as some oxygen finally seems to have circulated up into that pulsating mass he calls his brain.

"God damn disappointment...! Every day's like this! You won't go to school, or do anything useful in life! You fuck with me like this again, I'll kill you!"

The beast storms downstairs angrily, apparently not finding any satisfaction in lashing out towards me.

I sit there in front of my keyboard for a while, somewhat dazed, a million or so thoughts running through my head like the shower of a thunderous rainstorm. Eventually I hear the apartment's muffled door slam shut, and I scuttle back out of the room and down the stairs.

It's 10 in the morning, and there's an empty hamburger wrapper in the trash can in the dining room.

Anyways, eggs. They're a simple food and they won't give you headaches. I recommend boiling them the night before and putting them in the refrigerator so you're spared the trouble of ordering brain numbing junk food from a fast food joint the next morning instead.