All is fair in love and....

Warning! If don’t want to be tackled, wrestled to the ground or have a bloody nose I advise you not to participate in any Easter egg hunt involving my family.
Egg hunts at my house are not safe play. In fact, my family’s egg hunts are the exact opposite of traditional egg hunts. Instead of neatly groomed children skipping happily across a green lawn, my family dresses in ripped jeans, old sweatshirts and we tackle each other down across a cow pie infested pasture. My family rolls with laughter at the thought of a traditional egg hunt.
It doesn’t surprise me that egg hunts are competitive in my family. For my Dad’s 50th birthday party we went paintballing. I put war paint on my face and fake tattoos on my tiny biceps. I wore a doo rag and made my brother-in-law scream like a girl after I shoot him in his unmentionables.
My family has no concept of ‘just be nice to your brother/sister/cousin/smelly uncle Fester because it’s the holidays.’ We live by no such code. If our mission is to collect the most eggs, we will collect the most eggs and take down anyone who tries to cross us.
But what is it about cheap plastic eggs that come in a 12-pack for $1.98 that make my family so wild? Do they hold some kind of magical power over us? No. Plastic replicas of chicken excrements hold no magical powers.
Or do they?
As my Grandma says, “put a little money in ‘em and you kids go off your rockers.” The eggs may not hold the hold the abracadabra magic, but they do hold the shiny, round, George Washington’s bust type magic.
I once found $13 worth of magic during an egg hunt. But that was only after I was tackled by a cousin twice my size.
Now that I’m older, and I claim to be more mature, I have retired my egg hunting basket. I fill eggs full of chocolate surprises, jelly beans and the occasional George Washington magic now. However, the competitive spirit of egg hunting is still alive and strong in this hen.
While filling eggs one evening I challenged my husband with, “I bet I can fill more than you can.” He responded with, “I bet you can.”
Where’s the competitive spirit when you need one?
However, it’s his laid back attitude that helps our marriage survive. If he would have said, “ok, let’s make a bet,” I would have chucked all his eggs out the window so I could have won. In short, I wouldn’t be able to survive a marriage with someone as competitive as myself.
I don’t even know how my husband tolerates my daily challenges to him. He not only tolerates them, but he still lets me play. If I say, “first one to the couch wins,” he will steer clear out of my way so he doesn’t become road kill in my beeline for the couch.
My husband is a good egg. He may not have George Washington magic in the middle of him, but he is a good egg nonetheless.
It’s nothing short of a miracle that my competitive spirit hasn’t worn off on my husband yet. I know if I participated in an egg hunt this year I wouldn’t have to worry about cousins who are twice my size. I know I would dominate an egg hunt today because all is fair in love and Easter eggs.