The yolk was on us

ON Good Friday, eggs are a big part of the tradition.

You know the drill: Lay newspaper on the kitchen table, get out the six coffee cups and drop the little colored tablets from the Paas Easter egg kit (available at every Dollar Store), fill the cups with water and vinegar, and voila! Pastel Easter eggs for Peter Rabbit to hide for the kiddies on Easter morning and for dad to eat, and try to digest, for a week.

But there's another side of eggs that I'm not proud of that seemed, in my teenage years, to be funny and entertaining.

"Egging" ranks up there with mooning. Mischief Night is usually the time when corner stores and supermarkets all over Philadelphia won't sell eggs to minors because they know they're not going to be making omelets.

But during my youth there was the phenomena of carloads of teens cruising the seediest parts of Kensington Avenue and throwing eggs at the ladies of the night. I kid you not, just like cow tipping was big in Lancaster, egging was big there.

Because I throw like a girl, I was never allowed to be an egg-hurler. It's a shame I never overcame. While some people regret not getting into the Peace Corps or telling your secret crush that you love them, my biggest regret is not having the arm for the job.

That honor went to "Mego," a girl who's name I'm protecting because she's now a Catholic grade-school teacher. Mego had the arm of a cannon, the only girl on Port Richmond's version of the Bad News Bears in the Madison AA in the summer of '85.

Five bucks could buy five dozen eggs at Hecker's, but owner Gus Bauman, who put up with us for years as we tried to buy cigarettes and massive amounts of iced tea and orange juice to mix with whatever bottle we'd stolen from our parents' liquor cabinet, knew better.

He forced us to give our hard-earned after-school paychecks to the supermarket, which not only let us buy eggs, but condoms, too. (Being good Catholic girls, we used them for water balloons!)

"Christy" was our driver, not so much because her driving skills were top-notch but because she was the only one with a driver's license and hand-me-down, wood-paneled minivan.

We piled into the van and headed off to Kensington Avenue under the El.

The victims were easy to spot as they trolled the avenue wearing miniskirts, high boots and higher hair.

Once a target was found, we'd slowly pull up to the curb and ask directions. She'd let her guard down, sashay over to the minivan and that's when she got it. Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! (Sorry, Emeril.)

With machine-gunlike efficiency, Mego would fire as many eggs as possible. And because we saw this activity as such an art form, it wasn't just eggs, it was shaken eggs. We'd shake every egg ferociously, causing the yolk to break without cracking the shell. When it hit, it was almost impossible to clean off her halter top. And forget about getting it out of her hair. Once those scrambled yolks mixed with Aqua Net, no tricks tonight.

Mego's form was nothing short of perfect. Sometimes, doing a drive-by at a moving target, she'd prop her butt on the minivan door and lean out the window with the rest of us holding onto her Reebok Classics so she wouldn't fall out.

With three eggs in one hand (and a Parliament Light in the other), she'd never miss. If the Phillies drafted girls, we'd finally have a parade down Broad Street.

Yes, it was horrible. In self-justification, we claimed we were ridding the community of a scourge of life. In reality, we were egging hookers because we were too old for the rec center or the Police Athletic League, and too young for the bar scene.

This senseless pastime that now seems like something out of a "Porky's" movie was short-lived. One night we hit the wrong target. What we thought was a hooker bargaining with a john turned out to be a hooker talking to her pimp - packing heat.

The lavender Caddy with fuzzy white seats should've tipped us off that this just wasn't a guy looking for a quickie. The leopard coat and Mr. T-like jewelry also went over our heads. When three eggs smacked into this guy and his car, he drew the gun tucked in his coat pocket.

The girl on my lap lost her bladder. I almost swallowed my tongue. The minivan blew seven red lights as we headed toward the river, back to the safety of Port Richmond. To this day, nobody in that car eats eggs, dyes eggs - or throws eggs anymore. *

Patty-Pat Kozlowski lives in Port Richmond and has given up egging not only for Lent, but for life.