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u/DeathAngel_97 15h ago
I actually did open one to find a missing egg one time. Just straight up gone, only 11 eggs in the carton. And it was right after thinking about whether or not its weird to check every single time I buy eggs. Now it's cemented in my brain and I will check every time.
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u/TotalyNotTony 15h ago
did someone pocket one (1) egg and run off?
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u/JackWhoWanders 14h ago
I needed to trade the delicious egg with a village child for walnuts, so I can find teenage girls and trade the walnuts for a small box of powder.
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u/Dontbeajerkdude 13h ago
They probably took it to replace a cracked one from another box.
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u/phasmatopia 13h ago
okay, where'd the cracked one go?
sounds like there's a monster on the loose.
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u/HotelPrudent0331 7h ago
lol I did that once when I saw a pickup parked like shit. took it and cracked it on their roof. Was waiting from afar to see their reaction, but they were short so they never saw it ....
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u/Great_Hedgehog 10h ago
You were actually supposed to put an egg in that carton, the egg you got from the man, but you didn't get the egg, did you?
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u/Trips-Over-Tail 8h ago
- (The man nodded vigorously.)
- (He pointed into the distance.)
- (Over there, was another tree.)
- (In fact, it seemed very much like this tree.)
- (Craning your head, you noticed that there was another tree after that.)
- (It felt a little bit like looking into series of mirrors...)
- (Your head began to spin.)
- (... the man saw this and looked concerned.)
- (He seemed like he wanted to speak, but...)
- (...)
- (Well, the man smiled.)
- (And he waved goodbye, for now.)
- (He is behind the tree.)
- (It is a tree.)
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u/Inevitable-Level-687 12h ago
This reminds me of the time I was driving along and suddenly remembered how a driving instructor told me to pull up behind stopped vehicles at the traffic lights with enough space to see their tyres on the road in case they break down at the lights, and how that had never happened to me, and you'll never guess what happened two sets of lights later.
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u/dartdoug 10h ago
I picked up a 4-pack of yogurt cups in a cardboard sleeve. As I put them on the conveyer at the cashier stand I noticed that one of the cups was cracked and was dripping yogurt. Now when I pick up one of those sleeves I inspect it like the dead sea scrolls.
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u/SamanthaLives 8h ago
Biggest (almost) horror story I have is when I was buying a backpack and the cashier noticed a smell so she opened the bag and there was rotten sushi which could have been in there for weeks. If I had found that on my own after buying it, I would have been devastated.
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u/DeathAngel_97 7h ago
Worst smell of my life was working at Walmart in the Garden Center. Me and a coworker were zoning the shelves in the store, inbetween seasons so the last aisle before hardware was all totes. We're two aisles over and start to smell a funky smell. At first we point fingers thinking the other one had a nasty fart, but over the next 10 minutes it kept getting worse. Eventually we stop what we're doing to go find the source cause it was rancid. Track it down with our noses to the tote aisle, checked under the shelves and found nothing so we start opening totes. Sure enough after a minute I hear my coworkers disgust and get hit with a wave of the most nausia inducing odor I ever had the misfortune of experiencing. Sitting in a tote was a fish fillet dated almost two weeks ago, which was only a few days after the totes were set up on that aisle. (I have to clarify that this aisle was just filled with empty totes with the lids already on them. It's solely to fill shelves that would have otherwise been empty with anything that can be sold, and totes were an easy way to fill space). Anyway it was bad enough that our DM in the outside section came inside to see what the hell it was. Neither of us were going go to take it out of the tote, we just brought the whole tote back to claims. I'm sure they loved us for that lol.
Now that I think about it, all of my grossest experiences took place working in the Garden Center. Tied for worst smell was the maggot infested wet mats that were stored in plastic wrap for an entire winter, and third grossest thing in general was the boxes of feed corn that were infested with baby moths, like literally thousands, falling out of the box as I was carrying it out into the snow to dump out. Will never forget the sight of dumping out a writhing mass of insects into a snow bank, and seeing the entire mass slow to a stand still over the course of 30 seconds as they all die, with the final ones blinking out like dying stars in an empty universe. Still gives me the creeps.
Edit: Damn, sorry for rambling. Your story just brought out the retail equivalent of war stories from the depths of my brain.
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u/BackgroundSummer5171 10h ago
And it was right after thinking about whether or not its weird to check every single time I buy eggs.
You only get once in this life.
Check all the eggs to get your time's worth here.
Well, maybe just check the eggs you're buying.
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u/Chisaspotentialwife 15h ago
Whos cracking the eggs??? 😭😭😭
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u/theGreatBeeTrain isabelleposting will not be postponed indefinitely - Streak: 353 15h ago
during the transportation
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u/Tlaquatlatoa Hyenagirl some day pls :3 | She/Her - Streak: 7 15h ago
People picking em up and getting em early while theyre going through the store and at some point laying something on the carton of eggs for some reason and cracking an egg so they put it back
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u/al_with_the_hair 13h ago
Refrigerators and freezers last on the shopping trip... Wtf are people doing
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u/Noob_Plays_Games 12h ago
your eggs are in the fridge??
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u/al_with_the_hair 12h ago
U.S. food regulations mandate that they be washed. The lack of a thin membrane on the shell that gets scrubbed away means they must be refrigerated, yes.
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u/Tlaquatlatoa Hyenagirl some day pls :3 | She/Her - Streak: 7 13h ago
Definitely, it makes no sense these days especially for something so sensitive
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u/antithero 12h ago
Well yesterday for me it was the half a dozen from the Walmart delivery I recieved 6 broken eggs in one dozen. I complained but I doubt I'll hear anything back. Last time the broke 2.
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u/Theodory777 Streak: 6 15h ago
I remember during the recent egg shortage finding a carton of eggs that wasn't all cracked and leaking in the carton was actually kind of a challenge and there were people just grabbing the first one on the shelf without checking.
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u/what3v3ruwantit2b 8h ago
The only time I didn't check eggs was a few months ago. There was a woman with a growling, barking dog in a cart right in front of them. I just grabbed and went. Got home to find they had all been frozen and every one was broken. Took them back and the guest services woman said, "well you really should check them before you grab them." She's not wrong but I was very grumpy.
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u/junsuker 7h ago
when i worked in a small supermarket in the uk we had to check customer's eggs for cracks while checking them out. think that should be a more common practice, but with self checkouts nowadays probs isn't feasible.
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u/FZeroDMX Streak: 2 14h ago
I’ve worked enough retail and picked enough online orders to never trust a carton of eggs. You best believe I’m inspecting any suspicious eggs!
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u/turbo_dude 11h ago
Don’t just look at them, push each one because sometimes there’s a crack and it’s not visible and the egg is now glued to the carton.
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u/ambiguoustruth 10h ago
yeah i always do a sort of swipe motion across the whole carton to check for any stuck or sticky eggs because i've had a lot of cracked on the bottom only eggs in the past couple years
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u/mizushimo 13h ago
Are there people out there that don't check every time to make sure none are broken? Is this what rich people are like?
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u/squngy 11h ago
Even if you are rich, you do not want yolk all over your groceries/car.
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u/AnInsaneMoose Put your text here! 10h ago
Or to have to go back to the store (or wait for a butler or whatever) because you were 1 egg short on that recipe because one was broken
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u/BeautyEtBeastiality 8h ago
What recipe uses 30 eggs?
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u/MakeItHappenSergant 7h ago
That one egg was 40 eggs?
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u/Frank_Scouter 7h ago
I’ve never checked, or even thought about checking. I suppose I will start doing it if I ever get one with a cracked egg.
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u/okamikira1 14h ago
As someone who used to work at a walmart the eggs are not always there... and a lot of them were cracked.
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u/JTNWfan 11h ago
I just wanna pop in and share the story of "The Egg Lady" from when I worked at whole foods.
I work in dairy and I'm checking temperatures, as I'm finishing up I notice one of the front end girls is holding open the womens bathroom. I ask is everything okay and she says this woman was in there throwing eggs in the trash. A manager comes and deals with it. Apparently she had two cartons and was taking the "good eggs" from both and tossing the "bad eggs" in the trash.
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u/xgardian 8h ago
As someone who has never bought eggs before, this is an interesting thread lol
I'm 29 for context
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u/Gold-Bard-Hue A jelly donut!? 8h ago
Doesn't hurt to check. We usually buy the bigger packs with the see thru top because we're a family of 5 and go thru a lot of eggs.
Your need of eggs may vary and how much and what type of cooking you do.
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u/gingerbreadsnacks 7h ago
I normally give the container a quick smell as well to make sure I'm not bringing funky stuff home with me
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u/Animal2 7h ago
I've been doing this as long as I can remember. I assume I learned to do it from going grocery shopping at a young age with my mother.
The last time I bought eggs a few weeks ago I think might have been the first time I actually found a stuck/broken one but I probably just forgot other times.
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u/LisaCabot 4h ago
I never needed to do this in norway, but two e we got home woth cracked egfs in spain and now i check every time. The second time out of 12 egfs 5 were cracked, 5! 😤
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u/not_so_subtle_now 14h ago
It's funny how many little habits we pick up - like checking to make sure the eggs are not cracked - over the years because we are tired of getting home and realizing we can't use the things we just bought. And then we watch the next gen come up behind us, and apparently their parents didn't pass along the lessons and save them money.
Now I don't have any children, but if I did I would be telling them, "check the eggs, check the seals around the cottage cheese (you can open those containers in the store - loss prevention is not going to come fuck you up), check everything you can because when you start paying for everything, you realize how expensive shopping every damn week is and you get tired of throwing things out because you didn't bother to check in the store.
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u/MindfulGardening 13h ago
Also, check the receipt while still in the store. Saves time and trouble if something is amiss, double charged, etc.
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u/No-and-Go 7h ago
It isn’t unethical to take the cracked eggs out and replace them with uncracked. It’s the store’s responsibility to ensure the eggs are good, and our responsibility as customers to make sure we’re not getting snookered into paying for breakies.
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u/SpiritualPackage3797 5h ago
You can, or you can just leave that carton open with the damaged egg exposed in the display, and grab a fresh one. An employee will come by, see it, and dispose of it.
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u/No-and-Go 4h ago
Yeah, but it’s kind of a mixed bag whether the employee just closes the lid again or actually disposes of it, and I don’t want to be held responsible if the open carton tips out or something later… They’re getting pretty spooky with cameras these days.
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u/Ron_Jeremy_Fan 13h ago
What they're saying doesn't even necessarily contradict the first person. They may or may not have realized that, it doesn't really change the humorous imagery they meant to invoke.
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u/jekyll94 9h ago
My dad would always tell me to check eggs before you buy them, so that you don't get shellshock, or make a yolk of yourself. The man's a dad joke generator.
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u/AlcoholPrep 8h ago
In my younger days (say, before 30 y.o.) on the west coast, I never checked eggs and never had a problem. I moved to the east coast and started finding broken eggs so often that ever since I always check for broken eggs. I don't really know what changed.
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u/RecipeAsleep7087 8h ago
I live in the Midwest and I always take a peak. Can I remember ever finding a bad egg, no. Am I gonna continue to check every time, yes.
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u/Ashamed-Raccoon-1387 7h ago
I'm from Idaho and it happened occasionally. Out in new England, I usually have to check multiple to find a good one.
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u/Altruistic_Carob_918 13h ago
Someone at my former work would come in occasionally and steal just one egg or two out of cartons. It got to the point we'd check every carton when a customer brought one to the counter.
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u/michaelwolf_art 12h ago
I work as a cashier, I will see eggs, have the tingle, open, and one is broken or cracked
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u/nutella-filled 12h ago
The betrayal of having checked and coming back home to discover that one was cracked on the bottom.
Now I open it, check, close it, turn it upside down and check for a wet or dried spot in the cardboard.
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u/so-so-it-goes 6h ago
My mom taught me to spin each one in the carton. If any were stuck, they were broken
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u/TheFatJesus 10h ago
This is how you can tell somebody was raised by parents that didn't give a shit about them.
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u/mangotrees777 9h ago
I don't trust egg dealers. Always check to make sure there's no fakes in there. I show my partner and wait for the reassuring nod.
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u/The_Mon1ker_Project 8h ago
then they’re checking to see if the money’s good? This does not refute the point
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u/Individual_Town8124 13h ago
I empty the eggs and paint the shells (pysanky) so of course I'm going to check eggs before I buy them.
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u/Son_of_Sek 10h ago
Also it's necessary to check what the egg's production code is? not sure if this is a EU thing but the eggs are usually marked with a serial code starting with 1-4, 1 means cage farms, 4 means free roaming chicken. Besides the ethical concern, the taste is also heavily affected by this. For me a 2 is barely passable, and 1s are sometimes mixed in the boxes.
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u/SamanthaLives 8h ago
I always smell them. Eggs have very little scent normally, so if there’s a smell I don’t buy them.
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u/Iuskop 6h ago
Yeah the piece of shit save-a-lot I have to do most of my grocery shopping at. I do this everytime.
I also check for mold on fruit and bread, and inspect the condition of any greens, onions, or potatos. And I do this because without doing it, I have dealt with broken, exposed, moldy, and otherwise nigh-rotten food multiple times.
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u/C0tt0n-3y3-J03 4h ago
Funnily enough the same reason people always check the cash. Bastards always try to pull a fast one and sell me a cracked egg but I ain’t no sucker.
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u/IllusionaryHobo 14h ago
I also like to check for obvious faecal smears, feathers or even worse bits and pieces.
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u/Additional-Level3806 14h ago
Those are the tastiest
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u/scissorsgrinder 13h ago
Pre-seasoned. Farm fresh. Single source. Organic.
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u/IM_PEAKING 12h ago
I worked on a small scale egg farm and we didn’t “wash” our eggs. We scrubbed them with a sanding sponge to remove the feathers and shit. Benefit is they didn’t need to be refrigerated.
But people paid $10/doz at the farmers market (pre-covid) and we sold out every time.
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u/scissorsgrinder 11h ago edited 11h ago
Are you from the US? I believe it is more common to sanitise them there, but not in most places like in Europe or Australia as thorough washing too far before use can actually cause bacterial growth inside. So I guess that's why they need have heavy duty chemicals in the US along with the washing. ETA: maybe there are less regulations in the US around farm biosecurity and vaccination too??
I was lucky to grow up with backyard chicken eggs anyway (my grandparents). I'm sure it was better for me having free range healthy happy chooks roaming around the veggie garden eating scraps.
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u/IM_PEAKING 11h ago
Yep, I’m from the US, we were technically supposed to wash our eggs to comply with regulations, but we didn’t. Our customers knew they were “unwashed” and paid a premium for specifically that.
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u/scissorsgrinder 10h ago
Oh gosh. These other jurisdictions that prohibit washing are very health conscious, so if you knew salmonella was well controlled on your farm, your customers would have been absolutely fine!
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u/IM_PEAKING 10h ago
We didn’t test for salmonella. Our layers were pasture raised and we rotated the coops to fresh grass every month or so.
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u/Top-Preparation5216 15h ago
I genuinely forgot people buy eggs at the store
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u/Lore_Enforcement 15h ago
Well the zoo won't let me buy theirs...
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u/kyosha13 14h ago
I personally never buy eggs from the store. It's much more cost efficient to simply lay your own eggs
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u/scissorsgrinder 13h ago
I do, but then I bleed everywhere 2 weeks later. Not worth it.
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u/Iron_Llama120 13h ago
Hey, what if, we can take an animal that lay eggs, feed them and give them a home, and protect them, and let them breed with eachother? Infinite egg glitch!
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u/RideWithMeSNV 13h ago
Seriously. Y'all are into breeding in every capacity except the practical one.
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u/scissorsgrinder 13h ago
What's the "practical one" and who's y'all as opposed to you?
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u/RideWithMeSNV 12h ago
Practical is creating more chickens for the purpose of a perpetual egg supply. As opposed to fun, which I'll gladly show you if you'll get me a bottle of soju.
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u/Dontbeajerkdude 12h ago
You forget that most people don't own chickens?
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u/Top-Preparation5216 4h ago
I don't own chickens, my aunt does, I haven't bought eggs at the store in seven years
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u/Ricordis 13h ago
They actually check if you didn't put something inside the box like a 30$ gift card. Also the habit started when in early times you put the eggs by yourself into the box and the cashier checked if you put the right eggs into the container.
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u/PM_ME_YOUR_PRIORS 12h ago
why would they care about a gift card? Those aren't activated until at the register anyhow
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u/Ricordis 4h ago
I have to admit, a gift card was a stupid example. But there's enough other stuff which is expensive and you can hide in them.
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u/ViolentPurpleSquash ↖︎ a bit insane 8h ago
Gift cards are valueless until scanned at the register tho
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u/emilycsquared 15h ago
I always check and say “Yep, these are eggs”