How Do You Like Your Eggs? Sorry. Fertile isn’t on the breakfast menu. My married friend, Mary, is feeling clucky. So is my next door neighbor. My work colleagues. My high school buddies. The cat next door. In actuality, most girls I know are beginning to feel, or rather hear, the unmistakable sound of the biological clocks ticking as loud as the deafening noise of Krakatoa. It seems planet’s not-old-not-young Gen-Xers in high heels (and coaches ) are popping out Gen-C left, right and center. And the rest that aren’t popping are clucky-ing. And lining up on the IVF program. You see, while eggs keep fresh in the refrigerator for a while, it seems Mary’s eggs were fridged a little too long. Mary’s clucky predicament began five decades back. She’d just turned 35. I, on the other hand, was a spring chicken hatched from an egg. We were both single, sharing a cbd attic close to the trendy pubs we frequent in search of an alpha male. To fulfill an existential function. To cure Mary’s clucky predicament; spawn her progeny. Before it is too late. Though time was on my side, I had been looking for a similar thing. Preferably six feet tall. With a small to high IQ. With a wish list like mine and a serious case of the clucks like Mary’s, we will have better luck at the sperm bank. It’s as simple as ticking the box. Problem was, I wanted a beau, not a bambino. And Mary was a hopeless romantic. Like two wayward heroines armed with heels that could kill, we braved the jungle. We explored the depths of serial relationship to mastery. We lived and ruled singletown. Wantonly. As the bottoms of our Jimmy Choos pared and thinned traipsing through innumerable bars just to exhaust our charms on heart-thieves, tricksters and disingenuous gentlemen, we but plodded home barefoot and depleted. And, with a bagful of phone numbers we shall never call! We learnt a fact most insightful. Today’s postmodern courtship dancing (usually) begins with an alcohol-induced dalliance that ends all too suddenly when one settles into the beat of the drum. Perhaps they hear the loud tick of Mary’s biological clock. Or does the phrase”Commitment” gradually appear on my forehead on closer inspection? After much rumination, we came to a moment of lighting if this be our lot, then our whole lot be complete! Faster than one can say , the skies opened. The universe listened. The planet revealed its secret. Like sinners finding deliverance, Mary discovered an equally clucky prince. I found my six-foot-two Strong Man. With great genes and a high IQ. Our monomania cured. Almost. Five years on and with clucky prince in tow, Mary’s cluck has discovered no luck. And time isn’t a friend to a girl clucking in her almost-40s. She’s the prince alright – with an army of eager squirmy warriors. But damn those eggs! So Mary ditched me for her new best friends: Ivy F. Ob Gyn. Weird names. Weird folks. They fuss over her eggs!