Baked Easter Eggs

A couple days before Easter I had the bright idea to color Easter Eggs (no pun intended). A few fellow Targeteers were interested so I undertook the task of finding the required materials. As with most things unique to America this is more difficult than going to the nearest Target and buying one of the 38 different Paaz Easter Egg decorating kits in the Easter display.

My driver Stephen is a Christian and attends church regularly. Assuming if anyone would know about Easter eggs it would be him I asked on Thursday night "Stephen, do people in India make Easter eggs?" He paused for a few seconds; this should have been my first clue to engage the 'misunderstanding early warning system or MEWS' but I missed my cue. "Yes, yes, Easter egg."

"Good, some of us are going to decorate Easter Eggs at my apartment on Saturday.
I'll need eggs, white vinegar and food coloring. Do you know where to get food coloring?"

Had I been less eager to believe it could actually be this easy I would have recognized that I'd just made Classic Ex-Pat Mistake #4; Trying to put things into context.

"Uh, Fatima Bakery, very famous bakers."
"Ok, so you are going to get food coloring at the bakery. Sounds good."
"Uhh."
This brief exchange is a fabulous example Classic Ex-Pat Mistake #7; Reading between the lines and finding meaning that isn't there.

As a side note, Stephen says "Uhh" a lot. He has many cell phone conversations with another driver Shankar, in which the entire conversation seems to constist of "Uh Shankar, uhh, ahh, naa, ahh, ya-ya, ok." Shankar drives for Todd. I asked Todd once what Shankar says during these conversations. He said it is about the same on his end and he assumed Stephen was saying something more. But back to the Easter Eggs...

Friday morning I gave Stephen the shopping list. This is it verbatim:

4 dozen eggs (48)
Food Coloring / Dye
White Vinegar - It has to be white / clear

Note how I used highly explicit clarifiers to avoid misunderstanding; 4 dozen = 48, coloring is the same as dye, etc. Classic Ex-Pat Mistake #12; Forgetting the law of Synonym Asymetry - don't assume what is a synonym for you is also a synonym for someone in India. Or, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, in India its probably a goose.

Everything seemed fine so I settled into work for the day. At 11:30 Stephen came into my office or cabin as it is called here (see what I mean about Synonym Asymetery). He had a cake box in hand and a smile on his face. He opened the cake box to reveal 4 exquisitely decorated, egg-shaped cakes each about 5 times the size of a real egg.

"Did you buy 48 of these," I asked increduliously?
"Yes, Yes. Easter Egg."
"This isn't exactly what I wanted Stephen. I just want to take chicken eggs and turn them colors."
A quick web search produced a nice picture of what I consider to be "Easter Eggs".

"Ooh, ya ya, that different Paul."
"So what do we do," I asked, fully assuming I would be giving Easter egg cake to everyone I knew.

"I return."
"You can return bakery items?" It was at this point that I realized what he was actually telling me when he said 'Fatima Bakery' the day before. I'm slow but eventually I get there.
"Ya ya."
"Ok, so you will return these and get 48 chicken eggs, food coloring and vinegar." Notice how I eliminated all the elaboration, adjectives, clarifiers, and context. Again, a little slow sometimes but eventually the light bulb pops on.

That night I got home and there were 48 eggs in the fridge; food coloing and vinegar on the counter. I don't know what ever happened to the cakes.

So the moral of the story: Eventually I'll learn to just say "Stephen I need 48 eggs, food coloring and vinegar" then close my mouth. I'm virtually positive I'll get 48 eggs, food coloring and vinegar on the first try.

Here's what it was all for... Happy Easter