Has anyone else even heard of a Kingover contest?

This was a big part of our Easter tradition when I was a kid, but I haven’t heard of it since. It was great fun, the adults and kids all got into the game.

Here’s how it goes down: Everyone comes together after their morning egg hunt with their booty, and each person pulls out a single egg, holding the lower half in their fist so one of the ends is sticking out. One egg is then tapped against another, end-to-end. The end of one egg will crack, but one egg will not, and the person with the unbroken egg holds the temporary title Kingover One. They then knock their winning egg over the next person’s, and whoever is holding the unbroken egg is named Kingover Two. This continues until all eggs have been tapped, and the person holding the last unbroken egg is declared Kingover. In our case, the coronation included the presentation of a most regal trophy, consisting of a large plastic egg (of the variety used to package hosiery—remember L’Eggs?) nailed to a wooden base, filled with Easter candy. Quite an honour. The Kingover tradition was good clean fun, but the best part was the ongoing competition between many of the adults, who put way too much time into trying to discreetly cover the tips of eggs with various glues and epoxies, shellacs, some were wrapped with wool or covered in tissue (both disqualified) and one year someone even tried spot-welding the tip of an egg. This simply will not do when the eggs have been dyed with non-toxic food dyes, but perhaps that could usher in a whole other Edible Experiment: how to fortify a boiled-egg-end using all-natural foodstuffs. Ever try to get hardened oatmeal off a wooden spoon? That seems like a natural place to start. Get cracking.