The keyboard warriors were having a heated dispute on Facebook over the price of eggs. Some claimed they were paying $4 for a dozen eggs. Others said they were paying a lot less, and didn’t believe eggs cost that much anywhere in the country.
Naturally, the subject of politics was brought into the conversation, blaming egg inflation on one political party or the other. But no one was actually saying why the price was high. I thought I knew why: a bad outbreak of the avian flu, which has resulted in the deaths of nearly 19 million chickens this season.
Avian flu, also called bird flu, is highly contagious, and when one chicken in a coop gets it all the others have to be killed to stop its spread to other farms. So I thought I would call the good folks at the American Egg Board — they’re the ones who came up with the “incredible, edible egg” slogan — to ask why egg prices have risen. But something is scrambled at the American Egg Board.
It turns out that they are a tough shell to crack. I called the phone number listed on their website (incredibleegg.org) and let the phone ring.
And ring. And ring. It was an odd ring, too, quite unlike any I had ever heard before.
Eventually, the phone was answered by a fuzzy voice on a machine stating her name, like a home answering machine and not even mentioning if she were at the American Egg Board. The random voice halfheartedly suggested that I leave a message. I declined.
Instead, I sent an email on the form provided on the C.