Egg-cellently Enhanced

A beautiful sunset, a peaking mountain, staged laughter, the perfect poured latte. These days a picture is worth a thousand.. hours of editing. 

Our society has all morphed into photographers or I should say illusionists. We are all on the look out for the perfect lighting, perfect angle and perfect post-able shot. 

I remember how excited I was when we could remove red eye in photos right from our home computer. We were able to change our appearance from devil-like to angel-like. Now we are able to change our appearance from normal-like to Kardashian-like. 

With a screen tap we can remove wrinkles, acne, face shape and unwelcome people.  

Due to today’s phones’ abilities and the various apps, we can edit our photos any time, any where. We could be waiting for an Uber, riding in an Uber or driving an Uber, while enhancing colours, resolution and our dating profile. (If only people had the ability to enhance personalities too). 

Accessible photo editing has raised the beauty and lifestyle standards even higher.  Don’t think of it as that person is more attractive than me or has better experiences than me. Think of it as that person has more time to edit than me.  

In between enhancing photos, I’ve also had the opportunity to enhance breakfasts. Even unwanted ones….

In Sun Exposed, I was missing sleeves. Today, I was missing the joke. 

During the winter months, our department and food services, provide a special breakfast for our residents on scheduled Fridays. We grill up a meal and I grill the food services manager with cooking questions.  

We call this ‘Enhanced Breakfast’ where the meal is hot and the cooks aren’t too bad either. 

The meal consists of eggs of choice with sausage, bacon and toast (it is no place for a vegan). Either myself or the other recreation therapist cooks alongside the food services manager on the unit, while the care staff line up the resident orders similar to a diner.

However, it’s no Frosty Palace diner with heartthrob Danny Zuko – my heart only skips a beat when I slip on bacon grease. 

During this program I have enhanced my own cooking knowledge and learned that bacon grease is destructive – I’ve mourned many shirts, shoes, pants and arm hairs. 

One particular Friday, my co-recreation therapist and the food services manager were both unwell. So I received word in the morning that I would be enhancing 1st floor’s breakfast solo.  

During my commute to work I repeated the mantra, “I can do this. I can cook for 30ish residents. Even though I can barely cook for one.” 

The morning started off great. I was managing two grills and an abundance of orders all while still getting my coffee fix.

As I was cooking, a heath care aide approached me and asked, “over easy, please my dear?”

Comin’ right up!

After a couple eggs landed on the floor and my apron got caught on the grill, I served her two over easy eggs, sausage, bacon and toast with butter. I asked, “who is this for? This resident, here?”

She replied, “Oh… I was just joking. I thought you could tell by my tone of voice that I was kidding.”

As a jokester myself, I had missed the punchline…

Not long after, another staff member walked up behind me and asked, “is this order mine?”

I glanced down at the abandoned breakfast and replied, “made specially for you!”

With an overjoyed smile, she went on her way with the re-gifted meal. 

That may not have been the full truth, but how I look at it, I just edited my response which enhanced her appearance.