Originally published by The Clifton Courier, April 8, 2020

I’ve got news.

I don’t want to oversell this but, at the same time, I don’t want to undersell it, so I’m jut going to come out with it: I’ve had a lot of double yolkers lately.

Now, I know a couple of extra bits of yellow in a few eggs might not sound all that that life changing.

But my world is small right now. I’ve spent the past week and a bit on a self-isolation staycation. Aside from my government-mandated exercise, I’ve barely left the house. The Harry Potter series ended nearly a decade ago. I’ve seen all the episodes of The Simple Life.  I know seen what happens when you add bicarb soda to vinegar.

I’ve seen a lot in this lifetime of mine.

And I’ve seen my fair share of eggs. Heck, I’ve had quite a few eggs with double yolks in my time.

But not like this.

It started about two weeks ago when I cracked into my boiled egg and found two yolks. I found it mildly interesting and took a photo to send to my Snapchat group, but forgot to do anything with it by the time I finished my breakfast.

The next time I had a boiled egg, I was once again greeted with two yolks instead of one. “Huh,” I thought.

Then it happened again. This was now three double yolkers from the same egg carton. I had to honour this occurrence. So I posted it on Instagram.

My fans (yes, I’m calling them fans now) were thrilled. And by that I mean, eight per cent of the people who have been guilted into hitting “follow” on my account were impressed enough to compel their fingers to move a few millimetres from a resting position to press the “like” button.

A few days later the same thing happened again. I arranged the eggs to make a face and posted it online. Again, the response was overwhelming. 6.8 per cent of my followers were moved to the point of hitting the like button.

I had a new purpose.

I began planning my breakfasts so I could provide my fanbase with the eggy updates they were craving.

I was playing around with paints one day and found myself painting an impressionistic, almost Van Gogh-like image of egg salad without even realising what I was doing.  I posted this to my Instagram account and got an 8.2 per cent like rate.

I had found egg-related fame. It was dizzying.

By the time I was down to my last two eggs, I’d had nine double yolkers out of 10 eggs. That’s unheard of.

I felt like I had to do something more to document this monumental collision of chance and chicken reproductive systems before I ate them.

So I did what any sane person who had spent a week in self-isolation would do: propped up the two eggs on a pile of sheets and posed them like they were getting glamour shots. Then I painted a portrait of them.

Maybe it was the self-isolation talking, but I began to see personalities in their beige shells. With each different pose was a different story. Tender eggs. Defiant eggs. Terse eggs.

I ended up painting three portraits. My housemate said they were “pretty good”, which was probably her way of saying “they are so deeply moving – you have a gift Dannielle” without making things weird.

Now, with one egg left, I’m contemplating the end of what will be historically known as my Double Yolker Phase.

And I’m not sure how to mark such an occasion.

This carton was the last carton on the shelf at my local supermarket, so it’s not like I chose it. It’s more like it chose me, in some kind of mystical way.

I mean, I’m not saying that this is one of those “everything happens for a reason” things. I don’t know who makes the decisions about the happenings of the universe, but I highly doubt this higher power decided to unleash a global pandemic in a Chinese market at exactly the right date so it hit Australia at exactly the right time to induce people to stockpile essential goods to ensure that at the exact moment I stood in front of that open fridge there was only one carton of eggs I could select. I dunno about you, but don’t reckon this whole thing was orchestrated purely so a middle-class white girl could, as they say, “live her truth” and have something to post on social media for validation purposes.

But, at the same time, it’s fun to entertain the idea that something’s… afoot.

Anyway, that’s how my self-isolation is going. How are you all holding up?