Flashback Friday A Day Late

I've had a bizillion things to do today, and a few surprise things were added to my "things to do" list a few minutes after I got up this morning. One of those was dying Easter eggs. Now mind you, I'm 46 years old and I'm pretty sure I haven't dyed Easter eggs in at least thirty years. But this Easter Mom wanted some. And whatever Mom wants, Mom gets is my motto. Fortunately for me through a bizarre chain of events, I was able to get the neighbor's grandkids to dye a dozen for us. They even put our names, some pictures and stickers on them, too. So while they were busy making a mess at their grandparents' house for us, I was able to fit in my ten mile bike ride this afternoon. While I was riding, I reminisced about our family's Easter egg dying ritual.

Today, there's dozens of different egg dyes, coloring and decorating kits. Back in the day there was only one - Paas. Well, you could be really hardcore and use the little bottles of food coloring but most everyone used Paas. It was awesome, but it was quite an ordeal. In case you don't remember (or have tried to forget) the Paas kit would come in a small thin box and contained we think six colored tablets that looked like giant colored aspirin. My job was to get six different big coffee cups. Mom and Grandma would carefully measure out a couple of tablespoons of vinegar and pour it into each cup, and would pour some boiling water into the cup, filling about 2/3 of the way full. Then we'd use the very cool wire dipper (as shown above) and dip the eggs into the cups. When we were finished, we'd have to remember to keep the wire dipper, as Paas only put one in the box. We usually had quite a few of the dippers, so that way the whole family could get involved in the Easter egg dying. Of course the wire dippers were pretty flimsly and we'd usually drop a few eggs. Then one year Grandpa made us some sturdy wire dippers out of a coat hanger and then we were set.