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Honolulu Lite
Charles Memminger
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Hawaii has eggsceptional taste for eggs
IT WAS somewhat disturbing to learn that Hawaii chickens produce nearly 7 million eggs per month. Seven million a month! I mean, someone get those chickens a union.
What are Hawaii residents doing with 7 million eggs per month? We can't be eating them all. There are only 1.2 million people in the entire state, which means that every single person would have to be eating about seven eggs per month. OK, some people might eat seven eggs a month, but 1.2 million people aren't raiding IHOP that often.
I don't know how many eggs I thought our little state might produce on a monthly basis before seeing these most recent statistics, but if I had to guess, I would have said maybe a couple of hundred thousand eggs. Eggs might have a lot of nutrition, but they are also full of cholesterol. Does a small state need 7 million eggs per month?
But the weird thing is that egg production in Hawaii has been falling drastically for years. According to the Federal Department of Eggs, Omelets and Crème Brûlée (or something like that), last year our chickens were producing 8.8 million a month, and the year before that they were cranking out 9.3 million eggs a month. ("Cranking out" might not be the official scientific term for how chickens emit eggs, but when chickens are issuing forth 9 million eggs a month, the term "lay" doesn't quite do the biological process justice.)
The number of egg-emitting chickens has declined but not at the same rate as the drop in egg production. There are about 400,000 very tired and possibly despondent chickens responsible for all these eggs. You have to remember, these chickens think they are producing baby chicks, not future custard desserts, when they discharge these eggs. I suspect that the reduction in egg production is because the chickens are becoming a tad depressed at seeing no offspring result from their efforts. I mean, when Junior Boy doesn't show up after the first 5 or 10 thousand eggs, Mom's going to be bummed.
THERE IS NO federal agriculture department monitoring the production of gecko eggs (yes, I agree, a rash oversight), but apparently gecko egg production is way up this year. Granted, gecko eggs are small and hard to boil, and it takes about 500 gecko eggs to make a decent omelet, but maybe we should turn to geckos to take up some of the slack in the Hawaii egg market. Unlike chickens, geckos don't care whether their eggs hatch. In fact, if they do hatch, whatever life form issues forth is considered dinner to other geckos. (Geckos are one of the few creatures on Earth capable of sprinting at birth.)
The gecko option might be a way to satisfy Hawaii's seeming pathological lust for eggs until our chickens can get back on their game. (Any state that consumes 8.5 million eggs a year is a state with a cardiac ward in its future.) And our chickens obviously need a break. Just thinking about the number of eggs they produce makes it hard for me to sit still.
Buy Charles Memminger's hilarious new book, "Hey, Waiter, There's An Umbrella In My Drink!" at island book stores or
online at any book retailer. E-mail him at
cmemminger@starbulletin.com