Hopefully all you Ten Inch Hero fans out there will appreciate this little bit of fluff. It popped into my head the other day while I was making myself some hen period salad for lunch, and after sharing the idea with ArtistKurai I couldn't resist sharing it with everyone else too. Enjoy! ~SG
Hen Period Salad
"Mere, I know you're all for eating healthy and all, but you could never be a vegan." Dean said as he scooped a generous helping of egg salad onto his plate.
"Yes, I could." she argued as she eased down into her chair, using his shoulder for support because her belly was so round with the twins.
Dean licked a bit of egg salad off his thumb, shaking his head. "No, you couldn't. You like egg salad and deviled eggs way too much. You could never give them up."
She smiled. He wasn't wrong. "I could if I really wanted to, but I wouldn't have to."
"Why not?" Dylan asked, passing the fruit salad from Rowan to Maddie. "Doesn't vegan mean you don't eat or use anything that comes from animals?"
"Well, you don't have to be one hundred percent vegan." Meredith pointed out logically. "But even though eggs do come from chickens, farmers don't keep roosters so the eggs aren't fertilized."
"What does that mean?" Rowan asked. "I thought an egg was basically a baby chicken. How can it not be fertilized?"
"It's the same as with human women." Kim chimed in. "Our eggs only turn into babies if they're fertilized, but every egg we produce doesn't get fertilized."
"But they still come out." Meredith added, catching her husband's slight grimace out the corner of her eye. "Fertilized or not."
"So..." Maddie said, eyeing the egg salad. "Eggs are just...hen periods?"
"Yep." Meredith said.
This time it was a full grimace as Dean poked at the egg salad on his plate with his fork. "Well, that—that's appetizing. Hen period salad. That's lovely. No. You know what? That's just gross."
He was the only one that seemed to have a problem with it, and everyone else chuckled at him.
"Did we just ruin lunch for you, Dean?" Kim asked, amused at her brother-in-law's obvious discomfort.
"Yes."
"There's nothing gross about it." Meredith said. "It's no different than me having my period, and that doesn't gross you out. Anymore."
"I don't eat..." he trailed off, realizing what he was about to say, and gagging a little. "You know what? I know it's perfectly natural and normal, but let's not talk about menstruation at the dinner table. Or the lunch table. Or any table we're eating at. Ever. I didn't grow up in a house full of women like you people."
That got more laughter.
Meredith reached out and petted the back of his head, lovingly stroking his hair. "Poor baby."
"Eh." he whined, knocking her hand away at her teasing tone. "Don't poor baby me."
"If you don't want your hen period salad anymore we'll take it." she said, smiling at him.
"The three of you can have it." Dean said, lifting his plate and scraping the salad onto his wife's. "I don't think I can ever eat an egg again. Thanks, Mere."
"I love you too." she said. She wanted to lean over and kiss his cheek, but even that much movement was difficult when pregnant with twins, so she just smiled at him.
"You'd better get used to talking about menstruation and other girl stuff, Dean." Jake warned. "It won't be long before you'll have three teenage girls all going through puberty at the same time."
Dean sighed and turned his attention to his sandwich. Jake was right, and he was sure he could he could handle whatever his three daughters decided to throw at him, but that didn't mean he wanted to talk about it while he was eating. And he really didn't want to talk about hen period salad anymore.