Sunday, April 23, 2000

The great Easter Egg Hunter

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Young zoo employee has become expert in the art of hiding little treasures

        Quickly now, two things you need to do before your kids wake up and ravage their Easter baskets:

        • Steal their black jelly beans.

        • Hide stuff for this afternoon's Easter egg hunt.

        Stealing black jelly beans is the easy part. Do it quietly and make up a lie about some kind of shortage this year.

Easter Egg Hunt guru Chad Yelton (Michael E. Keating photo) | ZOOM |

        Hiding eggs, well that's a tad dicier. For that, we turn to expert Chad Yelton, who has “engineered or worked on many, many hunts,” including the two the zoo did Saturday: One for kids going after 21,000 eggs and one for gorillas going after a couple of dozen in the Gorilla World compound.

        Kind of makes him the Energizer Bunny of the egg hunt circuit, 'eh?

        In real life, he's a 26-year-old UK grad who lives in Northern Kentucky and has spent the last three years in the zoo's public relations department. Part of his job is to hang around when volunteers boil and dye 21,000 eggs, then work on the kids' portion of the hunt. The gorilla keepers do the other half.

        “The keepers hide them and make the gorillas forage — like an enrichment thing. For the kids, we just scatter them on the lawn. They're too young (usually under 5) for a difficult hunt.”

        Right. And where do 21,000 eggs come from?

        “Zoo volunteers boil them in huge kettles, then put a bunch in wire baskets and dip them in vats of dye. If we did it like at home, a wire holder and dipping them in cups, we'd have to start 10 years early.

        “Then we borrow a refrigerated truck from U.S. Food Service to store them. You don't want them sitting in the sun, you know?”

        Uh, yeah.

        Egg hunts are good for Mr. Yelton because he, don't laugh now, believes in the Easter Bunny.

        “Well, yeah. It's like Santa — you want to say you don't, you're too sophisticated and all, but then every holiday you find you have to believe because of the spirt of the holiday. You know, but do you know?”

        Fine. But this isn't getting your eggs hidden for the best hunt ever, now is it? How about a few tips?

        “First, there are two things, warnings, that I learned the hard way:

        • “Know how many you hide and count them at the end. You don't want to find a hard boiled egg three weeks later. And never hide them under sofa cushions. Somebody will sit down.

        • “Close the drapes while you're outside hiding them. You think kids won't peek. They will.”

        We stand warned. Now help us ...

        The worst place to hide an Easter egg ...

        Is a place so good no one finds it and you don't remember where it is. That's why you count at the end of the hunt. Two weeks later, finding them with a lawn mower is really ugly.

        The best places ...

        My favorite is the candy dish. Like a dish of M&Ms on the coffee table. Empty the candy, deposit the egg and put the candy back. I stole that idea from my wife's family.

        • Take out a light bulb and replace it with an egg. Lamps with dark-ish shades are best.

        • Shoes lying around the floor are good, but again, don't forget. You'll be sorry some dark Monday morning.

        • I slit a tennis ball, hide it in the middle and throw it in the yard.

        • See those yellow tulips? The bowl of the flower works for a yellow egg.

        • Got a sand box? Bury one. Downspouts and bird feeders are also good.

        The worst thing about dyeing 21,000 eggs ...

        Oh, getting the dye off your fingers. By the end of the day, we see red, green, blue fingertips. It can last a couple days.

        I do Easter egg hunts because ...

        Because they bring enjoyment to all ages. I like that look of surprise and triumph when they find an egg. And because hunts really bring families together. Like a bonding thing.

        If someone offered me an egg salad sandwich right now ...

        Right now? I'd decline. Firmly. Really firmly.

        If someone had told me 10 years ago I'd be holding 21,000 eggs I would have ...

        Laughed. I'd have been 16, and I wasn't thinking about eggs.

        The last thing to do when hiding eggs ...

        That goes back to what I was saying about knowing where you hide them. And don't drop them. Otherwise, you got egg salad.

        By Easter evening, I'm feeling ...

        That full feeling on Thanksgiving. I've cured my sweet tooth for awhile and I don't want to see an egg for a long time, even though I love breakfast.

        The one Easter candy I can't do without ...

        Chocolate. Reese's peanut butter eggs, because I'm a chocoholic. Hollow chocolate bunnies, too.

        No one should eat ...

        Peeps and black jelly beans. I know they sell 600 million Peeps at Easter, but not one to me. I get an Easter basket and everyone knows — chocolate only.

       

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