The Sticky

Every year, we dye Easter Eggs a little differently. We tried translucent egg stickers (they look so much better on the box, literally). We tried an egg crayon that keeps part of the egg from absorbing any dye (don’t press too hard). We tried making our own dyes out of food coloring and vinegar. This year we tried something new: glitter.

Along with the usual dye tablets, egg-dipper (we already have a half dozen from prior egg dying experiments) and instructions, the kit came with a bunch of silvery, sparkly glitter and an extra packet of “sticky” powder that when mixed with water would coat the colored egg and adhere the glitter to the egg. So after uneventfully dying a few eggs, Katie and I decided to add glitter to her plain blue egg. Katie put her egg “in the sticky” and we rolled in around a bit to get it nice and covered. Unfortunately, the sticky removed most of the color from the egg, leaving it a pale, pathetic version of its former self. When Katie moved the egg from the sticky to the glitter bag, the glitter clumped onto the egg in round, sparkling sores and ugly, glittering gashes. While I’m sure the company meant well, it must have copied the tri-methyl benzoate concoction used by a crazed Christopher Lloyd to kill cartoons in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”

After that, Jordan, Sarah and Katie tried to dip their eggs only in the glitter and pleaded, “Don’t put my egg in The Sticky!”

Perhaps it was the panic in Sarah’s voice that did it, but near the end of the dyeing, Julie got an evil gleam in her eye. “This egg is going in The Sticky!”

“No! Not my egg!”

“Yes, your egg. Ha, ha, ha, ha,” then came the heart-rending cries of egg in the color-flesh-eating Sticky; the faux distress of children as their precious Easter eggs faded and then clumped.

“Into the Sticky! Into the Sticky!” and with that, Julie began the egg-icidal round-up. No one’s eggs were spared. When all that remained were two un-dyed eggs (one of them mine), Julie smiled: super-dye suicide. It consisted of dipping an egg in each color successively, for a marvelous mauve-brown look. When she finished and left her egg to dry, it was my turn. I refused to let my egg commit super-dye suicide. Julie insisted. A great struggle of wills commenced. I finally, triumphantly, plopped my egg into a lovely blue color. That’s when Julie added all of the other dyes to the glass containing my egg. It was a spectacularly indescribable color.

Then, of course, the last of the eggs was ceremoniously marched into The Sticky. It was terrible. It was gruesome. It was disgusting.

It was the best time we ever had dying Easter Eggs. I highly recommend The Sticky.