Like shooting fish – er, eggs – in a barrel

About this time every year, I get a jelly bee-n in my Easter bonnet. The source of my ruffled feathers is the tranformation of the classic Easter egg hunt into the over-too-easy pursuit of thousands of plastic eggs lying in plain sight on a flat surface.

If you don’t know egg-xactly what I mean, let me lay it out for you.

In Northeast Richland, an “Eggstravaganza” promised “a huge Easter egg hunt with over 15,000 eggs.” A picture that goes along with this Internet bulletin shows a bazillion brightly colored plastic orbs covering a hunting ground (read, soccer field) wherein the grass is cut about as low as a green on a golf course.

I might add that the children featured in the photograph seem somewhat perplexed about which of the eggs to pick up and which to pass by because there are simply so many to choose from.

But it’s not only in the Columbia area that the traditional hunt is being scrambled beyond recognition. Google Easter egg hunt South Carolina and you will discover the hard-boiled truth.

One Upstate church touted a hunt including 4,000 people and more than 45,000 eggs.

Yes, being the egghead I am, I did the math, but never mind the more than 10 eggs per person. Four thousand people in pursuit of something? If I were the Easter Bunny or anybody else, I’d be terrified. I’d grab my basket and high tail it for the tall grass.

And therein lies the yolk of the matter. These colossal egg hunts are so soft-boiled they’re hardly hunts at all. There is no tall grass to hide eggs in. No downspouts, no crooks of trees, no dark underneaths of upturned wheelbarrows or far sides of big rocks.

And why? Well, I might get some egg on my face here, but my impression of the situation is that it would be really rotten if the contemporary child had to work at something. Or feel the stress of spotting an egg at the same time someone else does. Or experience the angst of discovering that someone else’s basket is fuller than his or hers.

No siree, when raising children, it seems that sunny side up is the only way to go these days.

Everybody gets a trophy. And everybody gets a huge batch of eggs.

Don’t believe me?

In an upcoming hunt, the organizer reminds participants to “bring an Easter basket or sack.” (In my world, sacks are meant for holding a passel of something. Like potatoes.)

And in another hunt, there is attached to the information a particular egg-asperating caveat: “Limit one golden egg per child.”

Really?

Well, yes, because here’s the thing. The old school concept of one golden egg per hunt is probably too much to bear for those who don’t find it and furthermore, it’s wreaking havoc.

Not among children, oh no, but among parents.

In 2012, this news story hatched out of Memphis, Tenn. “A fight over a golden egg during an Easter egg hunt landed one Memphis mother in jail after she allegedly attacked another parent with a hammer.”

I might be walking on egg shells here, but I’ve got a jelly bee-n in my Easter bonnet.

This story was originally published April 2, 2015 at 12:30 PM with the headline "Like shooting fish – er, eggs – in a barrel."