Today’s random word is egg.

This story was published in Fiction Shorts as a Drabble.

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Today’s Drabble is 150 words.

Setting: A Denny’s Restaurant in Eugene, Oregon.

Janet: “Have you ever walked out of a movie?”

Bob: “Five Easy Pieces, in 1970.”

“You don’t look that old. What’s your secret?”

“I don’t eat eggs.”

“Who doesn’t eat eggs?”

“It’s the texture — the same with peas. My mom made us eat everything, but I’d gag whenever I put an egg or a pea in my mouth. No egg or pea for sixty years.”

“I loved Jack Nicholson in Five Easy Pieces. Why did you walk out?”

“I hated the hold-the-chicken scene in the diner, too out of control.”

“That’s my all-time favorite Nicholson scene, even better than Here’s Johnny in The Shining.”

“I wanted to walk out of that one. But my late wife Donna wouldn’t let me.”

Waitress: “Can I take your orders?”

“I’ll have meatloaf.”

“Chips and beans. Do you have a substitute for the eggs?”

“Peas.”

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I did walk out of Five Easy Pieces in 1970. I’m not sure why. But I suspect twenty-year-old uptight me saw too much truth in Jack Nicholson’s Bobby Dupea character. I loved The Shining and Here’s Johnny. I hate eggs and peas and once, politely but firmly, asked a server in a London pub to take back my fish and chips because the peas, which I had said I did not want, touched the fish. Finally, the Five Easy Pieces diner scene was filmed at Denny’s restaurant in Eugene, Oregon.