Eggs

[Mrs Glockrunner]

Many years ago while I was still working, a co-worker brought in some of his country’s delicacies for us to try. He was Chinese. He brought two *authentic* “100-year-old eggs” from a Chinese market in D.C. for me and another friend to sample.

They smelled and looked disgusting.. with an uneven black surface. Turns out, that was just the coating of mud they were stored in.

The further we dug in, the worse it got. They had solidified over time, and were now clear with a black yolk. The friend could barely manage to approach his, once he got past the shell and mashed it a bit. I was very neat with mine and finally cut off a little wedge which I was able to choke down. The Chinese guy laughed his ass off, of course.

We flushed the remains and went to lunch someplace where we could get lots of alcohol to wash away the lingering rankness in our mouths.

About 2 hours later, we returned to our office, which was in a 22-story office building in downtown Rosslyn, VA. The streets were full of people, and a hook and ladder fire truck had extended its ladder to the very top, where the firemen were doing something, but we could not see. We asked a lady standing on the sidewalk what was going on..

“The building has been evacuated. Apparently some animal died in the air ducts and filled the building with a sickening odor. The fire department is going to try to flush it out by flooding the ductwork from the top of the building.”

My two friends and I decided our best course of action would be to simply take the rest of the day off. We turned and left.