Easter Egg Hunting: Family Friendly Activity... or THE HUNGER GAMES?!?

Easter egg hunts are quite possibly the first exposure a child can have to any form of athletic event.

In my opinion, they are the WORST possible exposure a child can have to an athletic and competitive environment.

In case you can’t guess, I do not look fondly upon my Easter egg hunting experiences. In fact, I honestly wouldn’t mind erasing them from my memory all together. I do not plan on having children, but if my life takes a turn down that road, they certainly will not be forcibly exposed to that environment unless they WANT to. And in that case, their father can take them and I will remain at home.

What's the freaking difference?

I was making connections between Easter egg hunts and The Hunger Games book series long before Suzanne Collins ever published the book.

When it came to Easter egg hunting, the odds were NEVER in my favor

Let’s think about it for a minute.

To begin, children are gathered in a public area, sometimes a town square or a city park. They are lined up and told where to stand while a group of adults prevent them from running amuck or going where they please. Some of them look frightened, and many of them act as though they might not really want to be there. Sound familiar?

It's reaping day you guys. Happy freaking Hunger Games.

 Parents begin coaching their children on exactly what they need to do in order to grab the most brightly colored eggs and collect the most bounty. Many parents may treat the situation a little too seriously. It’s as if their child’s performance in the egg hunt will decide if their child will prevail as a successful and respected athlete, or be the kid stuck in the losing-team press conference muttering vulgarity into a hot microphone.

A matter of life and death? Eh... close enough.

 Finally, it reaches the point where the parents can help no more, and the children are left on their own to enter the egg hunting arena.

Okay umm you know what? Maybe not. Nah, I think I'll just
go home now. It's safe there. I'm out. Not feeling it.

The children look out at the field that lay before them. Tons of brightly colored eggs filled with various treasures lay before them. The thought of grabbing as many of these as possible is intriguing, but at the same time, the children look around at each other. Every other child at this event will pose a potential threat at taking more eggs then them. The battle will be a tough one.

Oh.... oh no. Nope this is not what I signed up for.

Okay, hard pass. HARD PASS! I want out! I don't want to do this!

All of a sudden, a piercing and unexpected sound rips through the air. 

The sound is so loud, unpleasant and unexpected, about twenty children instantly drop out of the race and begin crying, unable to continue the dash for the egg-shaped treasures. The children who are able to collect their senses dash blindly into the fray, so shocked and confused that many miss eggs that are directly in front of them, instead dashing towards eggs that are much further away.

AAAAAAAAAH!

GET THE EGGS!! GET ALL THE &%$@ EGGS!

OMFG THERE ARE MORE OVER HERE! RUN! AAAAH!

GET THEM! THEY ARE OVER THIS AAAAH!!!!

Dude what? No! Why do you have that weapon?
This is supposed to be a family friendly community event!
Chill out!

Pure chaos unfolds. Children start running into each other, tripping over their shoelaces, running into trees, and spilling their precious already-collected eggs out of the back of their Easter baskets. The eggs that spill out are gone forever, as greedy and conniving thieving children ruthlessly collect the lost bounty of others.

MWUHAHAHAHA! 

 Finally, the madness comes to an end. In the aftermath, only the strong have a basket worthy of praise. The average and the weak have another year before the misery begins all over again.

This is how I interpret Easter egg hunts. Extreme? Maybe. But the whole egg hunt thing just wasn’t my cup of tea. However, it’s obvious that my poor performance in the annual Easter egg hunt wasn’t a deciding factor in how I turned out as a person. You don’t have to be good at grabbing brightly colored plastic eggs to get ahead in this world. If you did, they would have made Easter egg hunting an Olympic sport before table tennis. And we have table tennis.

Man, this world rocks. 

Keep Smiling,

Liz Heath

I hate Easter egg hunts, and I rant about other things as well. Find out what they are by following me on Twitter: @SaxophoneLizard

DISCLAIMER: The Hunger Games was not my idea, and these pictures are only used to enhance my blog. This blog is still mainly about sports, but I see Easter egg hunts as a fitting relevance to the sports world. It takes physical activity and a competitive spirit for those small children to rush upon an area with colored eggs carelessly thrown about. Therefore, it is a sick, twisted sport. You're welcome.