"I Am the Eggman"
The warning signs had been there, but I never thought it'd escalate the way it did. It started when Janet asked the Maple Academy second-grade moms if they had a preference between “Classic Christmas” and “’50s Kitsch Christmas” color palettes in the classroom group chat in mid-November. It was important, she wrote, because it would determine the aesthetic theme of this year’s Elf on the Shelf in the Brentwood household. She had attached two images to illustrate her dilemma: Exhibit A) a mantel draped with a fir garland, golden fairy lights, and red- and white-striped stockings (Classic); and Exhibit B) a credenza topped with a village of glitter-flecked Putz houses and brightly colored bottle-brush trees (’50s Kitsch Christmas).
Obviously, ’50s kitsch was far cuter than classic Christmas. It was annoying that she’d even asked, but that’s not the reason I ground my right molars (bad habit, I know). I was pissed because Janet had intentionally sparked an hour-long text exchange between two-dozen zealous moms in the chat that was supposed to tell me if so-and-so’s kid had been exposed to peanuts at school or if I needed to bring freshly pressed apple cider to the upcoming holiday potluck. And worse, my chat now was filled with those smug, Jared Kushner-looking dolls. They gave me the creeps.
Janet Brentwood would out-decorate everyone. The other moms were delusional if they thought they could beat her at anything: pickleball, staycations, the art of athleisure, even shaming her kids into behaving before the holidays. She was a suburban monster born out of a vat of Goop Afterglow Body Oil. She smelled like vetiver and had a habit of gently running her almond-shaped nails over one of her collarbones (typically the left one) when she was bored. Janet could have her slept with any of their husbands; she might have considered doing so if they weren’t all so disgustingly desperate.
Competing with Janet was pointless, but so was convincing Maple moms that they were wasting their time. The school was highly exclusive; this detail is unnecessary if you know anything about Bellevue, Washington. But assuming you don’t: the private schools are a microcosm of Bellevue, which is separated from Seattle by Lake Washington. Well, that and its higher property values. Bellevue has a median household income of about $150,000; that’s higher than the tech hubs of Seattle, San Francisco, and San Jose. Basically, people here have too much money, and some of them spend it on stupid shit.
I tried to laugh off the messages at first. The yearly pre-holiday “budget cuts” had forced me out of work; I told myself I could use a distraction.
“What’s the theme for your Elf on the Shelf display this year?” Camille asked me one morning. Janet had announced hers the night before: kitsch, which, again, was a good choice. Camille had jam on her Arc’teryx puffer vest. I moved to wipe it and pulled my hand back before anyone could accuse me of grabbing her breast.
Paige, whose coarse hair expelled itself out of a bun on the top of her head, responded before I had the chance. “Ours is a gingerbread land. Little houses, people, even dogs. My house smells amazing.”
The women glared at each other. They were two tectonic plates, shifting away from one another to let the hot magma that was their inadequacy and fury—at Janet, their husbands, their mortgages, their kids who wouldn’t go to sleep no matter how many books they read—flow up, up, up.
It was a perfect metaphor for capitalism, really. Janet was the multi-billion-dollar company, while the other moms were the startups too hellbent on the prospect of her approval to team up and take her down. A shame.
“I like gingerbread,” was all I said.
But the messages kept coming, sometimes more than 30 in a single day. My phone buzzing, buzzing, buzzing. So many elves. The elves’ names are Scout, I learned. All of them.
The moms were brusque at drop offs, their hands marked by burns from hot glue and their pants covered in glitter. Something had to be done. I could poison all of their lattes at the next PTA meeting, I thought, squeeze some juice out of a Western water hemlock. Even in winter, you can find some along Kelsey Creek. Or, I could destroy their little rivalry by taking down the apex predator.
I chose the option that was less likely to land me in prison.
My tactics were subtle at first, little notes in the mail sent to Janet’s house. No return address, of course. Things like a photoshopped image of Mariah Carey with a Scout elf and the words “All I want for Christmas is you to stop your bullshit.” Harmless.
She must have suspected it was someone from the class chat, though, because she didn’t say a word to the group, simply got more elaborate with her displays and more aggressive with her messages. Her Scout slid down the bannister of their two-story home on a miniature Radio Flyer made out of popsicle sticks. He bathed in marshmallows and climbed an elaborate rock wall made out of paper-mâché stones and 3M sticky dots. He lived a life of wonder while I experienced a plunge into the infernal regions of suburban life.
“I had a dream about the little bastard,” I said to my husband. “I dreamed that he sat on the bed watching me sleep with his eyes that never blink. They’re blue. The kind of blue that serial killers have.”
“Which serial killers?”
“Bundy, Gacy, Son of Sam—all light blue,” I said. He shrugged and drank his coffee.
#
It was a Tuesday, the second Tuesday of the month of December, when I determined that I could no longer allow Janet to continue her charade. I needed to kill her spirit. Metaphorically, of course.
There were so many messages in the chat that Tuesday that I missed the memo saying the school had declared a snow day—something rare and exciting in the lowlands. If I’d known, I might have taken my son to the zoo or driven him out to Snoqualmie Pass for sledding. Instead, I piled my shivering kid into my Land Rover Discovery (the snow mode is excellent, by the way) and arrived at a closed Maple Academy. I drove by Janet’s house on the way home. Her kids were making a snowman in the front yard.
Janet lives in a white craftsman, a monstrosity of a structure that attempted to be both farmhouse and contemporary PNW. The white fiber cement siding, with its texture that imitated cedar bark, gave the house a “timeless” homey look that can only be achieved with tens of thousands of dollars. A black metal roof “with a 50-year lifespan guaranteed,” she’s told us, topped the house, and the windows wore a trim as black and brooding as the eyeliner I applied during my emo phase in high school. Janet even has one of those “In this house we believe in [insert progressive value]” yard signs—the kind that signal to people that, no, they were not welcome, and that, no, the home owners would not be participating in any further activism.
“She’s a hypocrite,” I said to my husband while carefully removing thyme leaves from their sprigs for a vegan stew. He just laughed and poured himself more wine.
Janet’s house was on the way to my favorite dog-walking trail, right behind the botanical garden. She had a Ring camera by her front door, but it was out of range from the multi-mount mailbox system the HOA installed. The boxes, all five, sat in a row like windows in an advent calendar.
Naturally, other homes had security cameras, too, but if I wore a beanie and a KN95 mask, pretended to tie my shoe or leaned against the boxes to respond to a text, no one would notice me. A white woman in Lululemon leggings and a North Face jacket could be most women in this neighborhood. I’m their wife, mother, sister, frenemy. I am she as she is me, as you are we and we are all so hopelessly boring.
The first surprise I deposited in person was simple. Honestly, I could have mailed it, but where’s the fun in that? I tied a tiny gift tag with the words “Deck the halls!” to an Elf-sized noose I made out of twine—I considered making the noose out of velvet ribbon, but kitchen twine seemed more authentic. Then, I placed the items in a candy-red envelope and sealed it with a snowflake sticker.
“Taking the dog on a walk,” I whispered to my husband at 5 the next morning. He grunted. I stashed the envelope in my puffer pocket and attached Franklin’s leash to his collar. Adrenaline pushed the boundaries of my pores as I approached the mailbox. I touched my finger to the metal handle, cold from the night’s rain. I was nervous. My intestines played Twister, sending waves of nausea through my bowels and stomach. All I had to do was open the box. I closed my eyes and pulled. It was easy; the mouth opened without so much as a creak, as if it had been waiting for years for someone to feed it something new, something fresh, something satiating.
I saw Janet at Nordstrom that afternoon; she waved.
#
I waited a couple of days before my next delivery; I didn’t do this every single day, I’m not insane. The pauses were good for everyone. I needed to generate new ideas, and Janet needed time to make a calculated move. She wouldn’t just come out and accuse someone. After all, she posted her whole life on social media; could she say for certain it wasn’t a mom from dance? Or her sister-in-law whom everyone knew envied Janet’s position as the Brentwood family favorite? The postman she snubbed each holiday while her neighbors gave him gift cards?
The next gift was inspired by my son. He’d gotten a surprise ball at a birthday party and had been so giddy to unspool the long strip of fragile paper, his tiny fingers working with the precision of a heart surgeon to avoid any tears. I would have ripped the whole thing open. Funny, the small ways our kids reject us.
I did a quick search online and found tons of tutorials—people really didn’t like spending $10 on these pre-made—that only required streamers. Easy, I had some white ones leftover from Halloween. For the surprise inside, I settled on a miniature ax. I figured if it was good enough for Lizzie Borden, it was a fine enough weapon of choice to intimidate Janet. The ax was simple to put together with only a toothpick and a small rectangular piece of aluminum foil. I colored the sharp edge of the blade with a red Sharpie and wrapped the streamers around it in an “X” pattern until my gift resembled a golf ball, which I secured with a festive tartan ribbon. And, because no gift is ever complete without a greeting, I scribbled “You better watch out, you better not cry” on a notecard.
Drop off was seamless, if not anticlimactic. There was no savory rush afterward this time. I felt anxious, greedy, my left eye twitching like that guy in Matchstick Men who just can’t give up the con. Dear God, the thought of being Nicholas Cage was much too horrible for an already waterlogged Monday. I attempted to distract myself by heading to my favorite French bakery for a croissant (they get the butter from France, which makes all the difference) and a coffee. Bellevue’s not a large town, really, and it wasn’t too surprising to see a handful of Maple Moms sitting at a table near the fireplace.
“Marcie,” they whispered when they saw me, eyes shooting around as if I’d caught them siphoning bake sale funds. Sharon motioned for me to take a seat. “Day off?” she said.
“Layoffs.” She already knew this; her husband was one of those un-fireable middle-managers in my department.
“Have you gotten anything weird in the mail,” Kelly asked.
“A lot of ads for holiday light installation and window cleaning,” I said. “Have you?”
“No,” she said, “but—.” Kelly looked at the women around her, silently asking for permission to invite me into the fold. Silence tightened its grip on the air until Sharon nodded. “Janet has gotten some strange things lately,” she continued. “She doesn’t want to make a big deal out of it, but she’s clearly worried. She won’t let her kids open the mailbox anymore.”
“What kind of things?” I pinched my eyebrows together in a way I hoped conveyed genuine concern.
The women took turns telling me about all of my misdeeds: the severed gingerbread head with Xs for eyes, the noose Janet threw screaming into the compost bin, and the dime bag of Smarties I’d labeled “Scout’s Party Pillz.” That last one was a dig at her 17-year-old stepson. Everyone knew he was a dealer for rich kids. Of course, no one ever said anything; he supplied cocaine for half of their New Year’s parties. Surprisingly, the Mariah Carey note had caused the most turmoil, as Janet’s 11-year-old daughter now insisted her parents “stop their bullshit” any chance she had.
“That’s horrible,” I said in between bites of my croissant. “Does she have any idea who’s sending all this?”
It seemed that I had divided the class moms into opposing gaggles. Some thought that Everly and her two best friends, Laurel and Stephanie, were responsible, while others thought it could be Avery and Grace. The consensus was this had to be the work of at least two people who must have been from the group chat, because they’d used a piece of last month’s PTA agenda for one of the notes. That was genuinely unintentional on my part, but I did like that the stakes were now higher; paranoia seized these women. They were probably spreading their own theories to Janet behind each other’s backs. I took a sip of coffee to conceal my smile. It was all so delicious.
“Do you think that means our class visit to Snowflake Lane is off this Friday,” I asked, tilting my head to indicate that I would be truly disappointed if I didn’t get to spend an entire evening listening to their children talk about Minecraft and iPhones and Kraken box seats.
“No, of course not,” Mel said, placing a hand on my knee. “We can’t let this ruin Christmas for the kids.”
“Those angels deserve a magical night,” I said. One of the moms actually wiped a tear from her left eye.
#
I almost felt bad about the last treat I made for Janet. Truly, it was sick. Then I reminded myself that she had sent the entire class a stop-motion video of her elf making a snow angel in a pile of powdered sugar on her marble countertop. The veining on this marble is unreal, which made the video all that more aggravating.
It’s not like I had this one planned out. It came to me one morning while I was walking Franklin in the botanical garden. I was fuming about the absurdity of it all: the idiocy of the fakeness, the time wasted trying to impress each other. Janet was a fraud, and her elaborate setups were driving the other moms to do unthinkable things. Cleo bought a limited edition Twinkies’ box—only the box!—from 2017 for $80 on eBay to use in an elf display. Cleo’s kids aren’t even allowed to have refined sugar. This elf nonsense was purely the beginning; next it would be exorbitant Valentines and leprechaun villages and ceiling-high Easter baskets.
Franklin squatted as we neared the garden’s Rhododendron Glen. The rubbery leaves of the trees drooped under the weight of the morning frost, the bulbs harnessing next spring’s flowers resembled heavy glass Santa Lites. My grandmother used to string those on her tiny A-frame house during the holidays. I got lost in their magical allure every year. The colors were so hopeful and wholesome: mustard, royal blue, mint green, and red. Simple. So unlike the blinding LEDs in my neighborhood today.
And as I slipped the dog bag over my hand and bent to pick up Franklin’s steaming excrement, I knew I had my answer. I loosely tied the bag and headed for the house.
Fine, I can admit it. It’s not like I’m that much better than these other moms. I am she as she is me and all that. But when it comes to dedication, I’m unrelenting. I’d survived three consecutive years of “holiday” layoffs before Big Tech brought me down. Janet wouldn’t quit, I knew that—but with this, my pièce de résistance, I could make her wish she’d never started. Or, at least, gag.
The smell was revolting. My husband had clearly not been following the simple diet Franklin’s vet had prescribed: one scoop of organic kibble, as it contained the nutrients he needed; a serving of vegetables and one source of fresh protein; and filtered water daily. There were shards of almonds and what appeared to be a Hot Tamale sticking out from the mound, still warm, that I carefully transferred into a piping bag. I placed a chocolate chip muffin in a gold cupcake liner and made a mental note to restock the muffin supply that afternoon—my son would have a complete meltdown if he had to eat cereal the next morning.
After debating between a rosette and a classic swirl, I opted for the latter and affixed my Ateco 808 piping tip to the bag. Starting at the outer edge, I slowly swirled Franklin’s refuse in circles until I’d achieved something beautiful. Really, if this hadn’t been made of shit, I think I could have sold it.
I placed the crap-cake into a clean, empty takeout container and opened my phone. It was 9:45, still early enough for a coffee. I thought it would be nice to send Janet a latte with the gift to really drive the knife in—imagine getting literal shit alongside a creamy matcha latte; it’d give you emotional whiplash. Would she think it was poisoned? Would she drink it? Which scenario was worse?
I hired a TaskRabbit to swing by my house to pick up the takeout container and paid him extra for the coffee and delivery.
“This smells like shit,” he told me.
I smiled. “It is.” He nearly dropped the container on the ground, but I handed him a $20, and he said “OK, whatever you want.”
My heart jumped rope all day. The TaskRabbit guy left the package on Janet’s doorstep, which was probably for the best. I bet if she’d answered the door she would have paid him to rat me out, which would have really made things awkward at the parade that night. It was one of those unofficial-yet-mandatory group outings Janet and her two closest allies forced everyone into attending. Sheila didn’t go to the egg hunt last spring, and her kid wasn’t invited to any birthday parties over the summer. Brutal.
A few of the moms got to the parade early to reserve spots. I was in charge of picking up their kids from school and bringing two bags of organic marshmallows and compostable cups for the hot chocolates Meagan was bringing in her collection of Stanley Classic Legendary thermoses. I was told they held 2.5 quarts each.
It wasn’t hard to find our spot along the parade route. The moms in charge had laid out three large Pendleton blankets—wool ones that would have to be dry cleaned—and two dozen throw pillows on the sidewalk. Next to one of the blankets was a chalkboard sign framed in fairy lights reading “Maple’s Second-Grade Elves.” A high school band was warming up with Jingle Bells, the sound of adolescent nerves bellowed off of the surrounding buildings; one of the flutists hit a B instead of a B-flat. A man walked by with a cookie the size of my head, sending a wave of cinnamon through the air that tickled my nose; I nearly sneezed.
Finally, Janet arrived. She looked hawkish, like Liz Cheney pre-Kamala endorsement. A cashmere hat topped her head, her blonde hair cascading in barrel curls over the shoulder of her Burberry trench coat.
There were 30 minutes until the parade began, and the moms started handing out snacks and drinks to each of the children. Janet reached into a bag with a surprise of her own. Inspiration to bake struck her that morning, she said, and she had prepared two types of cupcakes: chocolate cupcakes with peppermint buttercream for the kids; and boozy bourbon eggnog cupcakes with an eggnog buttercream, sprinkled with nutmeg and coconut flakes, for the adults.
A shiver spread down my neck, and my eyes sharpened. I’d never felt so alert, so intrigued. Janet Brentwood had finally come to play. What might she have added to these cupcakes? Laxatives? Overdone. Dehydrated bovine colostrum? The other moms would have probably preferred that. Shit? Too risky with a whole group.
I graciously accepted my cupcake and inhaled its scent: earthy, sweet, a slight spice from the bourbon. Glancing around, I saw that other moms had started to eat, shyly at first, and then greedily, as if, at last, they had been granted permission to gorge on something, let themselves be free. It was remarkable, that cupcake.
The parade had just begun when Avery pointed at a float, her pupils two cast iron pans. “It’s here,” she said, “It’s always been here.”
I looked in the direction she was pointing and saw a reindeer dancing and passing out candy canes. A 10-foot snowflake followed closely behind, glitter beaming fragments of light in every direction. I wondered if you could touch that light, if it would feel warm.
A dancer in a white dress twirled in the street, her extended arms blurring until she looked like a giant egg. Behind me, I heard moms screaming. Sharon said a gingerbread man was going to kill her family; he had evil eyes. Another mom tried to climb a light pole. One pushed the children off of a blanket and rolled, screaming that she was a chestnut on fire. The sounds of the marching band around me bounced; the flutist finally hit the B-flat, and I felt light.
I looked over at Janet as she watched it all unfold. She turned in my direction and waved, mouthing “magic mushrooms,” and we both started to laugh, our mouths morphing into deep caves, unhinging at the jaws. It was all so silly how we thought any of this actually mattered; even John Lennon said “I Am the Walrus” had meant nothing at all.
#