Egg On A Muffin: Can We Afford The Risk?

I often hear people say, "You can't be too careful."

What if they are right? Maybe I am being far too cavalier in my attitude towards risk.

For instance, when I'm working at home, I like to treat myself to a fried egg on a muffin. As snacks go, it's probably not the healthiest choice. I should probably have some fruit instead. Or something brown and grainy with seeds in it.

But who in their right mind could resist a fried egg, smothered in ketchup, plonked on a toasted muffin and washed down with a mug of tea? If that prospect does not get your stomach rumbling then you are abnormal and immoral and you should be utterly ashamed of yourself.

The Sciencey Bit

However, eating an egg on a muffin is potentially a risky business. For instance, I've discovered that there can be structural problems. If the muffin is over-toasted and hard, and the egg is over-cooked and rubbery, and you add a bit too much ketchup, then you are at risk of creating an incident that could embarrass your neighbours, corrupt the nation's youth, and even pose a threat to the future of the human race.

The hard-muffin-rubber-egg-copious-ketchup scenario (as I like to call it) is a dangerous set of conditions. It results in a reduction in the amount of friction between egg and muffin - friction that is essential for holding the egg in position.

In effect, what you have done is hardened and flattened the two surfaces (i.e. that of egg and of muffin) and then lubricated them with ketchup. It could almost seem like a deliberate, bloody-minded and reckless attempt to lose control of your egg altogether.

It might even be useful to ask yourself whether, at some subconscious level, you have deliberately created a potentially hazardous situation. Perhaps you need a little excitement in your life. Or maybe you are on the edge of a nervous breakdown and this is some sort of pathetic cry for help. Either way, that egg is in serious peril.

As you bite into the muffin, the chances are that the top and bottom slices will push together and squeeze the fried egg out.

Apocalypse

The best you can hope for in this situation, is that the egg lands on your plate, affording you a precious second chance.

In the worst case, you can expect your fried egg to shoot across the kitchen and out of an open window, skimming across a cloudless sky where it is inadvertently photographed as your neighbour takes some snaps of a Redwing in a nearby tree.

Later the neighbour will look at that photo and notice a strange flying object in the sky. Its weird, fried-egg-like shape and colour will immediately lead him to conclude that it is a space-ship carrying alien life-forms on a surveillance mission of the Great Sankey and Penketh area.

He will send it to the Warrington Guardian. Their readers will be shocked. Some will say that it is not an alien craft but a flying fried egg. But UFO believers will dismiss that idea as nonsense - what would a fried egg be doing flying through the Cheshire sky? Ridiculous idea! Far more likely to be aliens in a spaceship.

And then what? Panic on the streets? Emergency meetings of the local council - resulting in the diversion of important resources away from serious issues like fortnightly refuse collection or the plans for new traffic lights outside Asda?

In a radical move, the council may decide to cut the policing budget in order to build a giant observation tower in the local park. And, with fewer bobbies on the beat, local youths will run riot.

Even those kids who were previously well-behaved will now buy hoodies from that skateboard shop opposite the market and will take to the streets, using foul language and listening to unpleasant music.

And once our children have become hoodies, we all know that there can only be one outcome - the total downfall of mankind.

What will the aliens find now but the smoking ruins of a once great civilisation?

All Your Fault

Except that, of course, there are no aliens. There never were. It was just your egg. The egg that you shot out of your kitchen window like an exocet missile, driven by your unconscious need for attention in a lonely, friendless world.

My God, I hope you're proud of yourself.

The Apocalypse is upon us. And all for the sake of an egg on a muffin.

This is what went through my mind this morning as I stood waiting for my muffin to toast. By the time the toaster popped I felt quite distressed. I don't want everybody to die, I thought.

So I decided to give the egg a miss and have raspberry jam instead.

After all, you can't be too careful.