When an Omelet Really Matters
At one point in my life, summer camp for me was taking a Blue Bird school bus to Juneau, Alaska, and back. Now to remind you, I live in Austin, Texas. At that point, I grew up in Houston, so it's quite a drive. A van would come pick us up in Houston, drop us off in Austin, and then we'd go to Juneau, Alaska.
We only slept inside in two places: Yellowstone because of the bears and when we were in Juneau, as somebody had an unfinished house. I did this three years in a row. It never occurred to me that the house was not yet finished all three years. Although weird, looking back, it seems absolutely Juneau.
Anyway, a situation came up last night, and it reminded me of the traditional camp omelet cook-off.
I've always been a pretty good cooker of eggs, all the while knowing that a lot of people just can't cook them, but one thing you can't tell anyone who doesn't know how to cook eggs is that they don't know how to cook eggs. Only if you know how to cook eggs do you know the burdensome truth.
Anyway, I did not win the omelet contest the first year, so I basically worked my ass off for a year to (further) perfect mine.
We had a special omelet pan in our house that was never to be washed. You could only wipe it or clean it with salt. That's it. I've tried to do this in my own house, and I know how hard it is to get everybody to fall in line, so massive respect to my parents for getting this done, probably over anything else, really, growing up.
Anyway, I arrived in camp the second year, ready to go, and when it came time, I performed. I stepped up, and I basically produced a perfect example. Then I watched everybody else fumble, totally cocksure, knowing that I would win.
Sure enough, when the three counselors' votes were in, you can imagine my surprise when I lost.
I was crushed, like truly crushed. Like, it's what everybody tells you, you work your ass off, blah, blah, blah, blah. Was not to be that day.
But I was bold enough to talk to the counselors, took them aside, trying to figure out what the hell happened and plead my case. Not that I wanted to take the prize away from anyone else. I wasn't after that. I just needed to know what needed to change for me to win next time.
I lodged my complaint, and then was taken aside by two of the three counselors.
They told me that the omelet competition was always won by the person with the fewest friends. A ruse! It's the boy who just wasn't fitting in and couldn't figure things out and needed a win.
I got it instantly, and I realized what kind of men we were dealing with who were taking us through basically the entirety of North America. Amazing.
I just remember being really in awe of them. I didn't know that you could do things that way, and it really opened up my mind to how to deal with people in situations and help folks.
Truly life-changing.