I knew I was saving the crap for a good reason.

Over the weekend, my son's preschool teacher sent out an email asking each parent to bring "ten filled plastic eggs" to school for a belated Easter egg hunt. Okay, fine. I figured I'd put some stickers and a chocolate kiss in each one and we'd be good to go.

Then one of the other parents responded to her email, asking whether candy was okay.

@#$%#$%. Dadgum that woman's hide. Why did she have to ask that question when the answer was predictable? No teacher in her right mind, especially one at a school which takes a hard line on nutrition, is going to publicly say "Sure! Load the little monsters up with caffeine, chocolate and sugar and then we'll watch 'em spin around in circles like a rabid dog chasing its tail!" The answer was obvious from the get-go, and the best way to avoid hearing it was to not ask the question in the first place, then pretend ignorance if the issue came up after the fact. "Chocolate? Huh. Can't imagine how it got in there. Who puts chocolate candy in Easter eggs, anyhow?" The teacher of course responded back that "non-food items ... are recommended."

Great. There goes my plan. Non-food items, eh? Well, I don't really have any little trinkets small enough for Easter eggs around here, unless you count the tiny little plastic flies and babies I've experimented with, grafting the flies' wings onto the babies' backs. What I do have is a jar by the washing machine full of the crap that I sweep off the floor and which comes out of people's pockets: wet Band-Aids, stray buttons, rusty paperclips, ugly rocks. I think I even have some small squares of ceramic tile with long-dead barnacles attached. I kind of want to keep those, though.

I'm tempted to go for it. Imagine the kids' surprise! "Hey! I got a broken belt buckle!" "Why, so you did, Susie! That's a million times better than getting a piece of chocolate, don't you think?"

P.S. Remember that old saw about whether the glass is half-full or half-empty? I finally figured out the answer: it's always full. It's just that sometimes the glass contains more air than liquid. If you're cool with a glass full of air, life is good.

P.P.S. I told my husband about my plan to hand out flotsam. He lapsed into an imitation of a worried parent, saying "Who handed out the rusty bobby pins? All of the children have Tetanus now!" For some reason, this struck me as insanely funny.

P.P.P.S. I made up some cool wine glass markers a few years ago. They have beads which spell out words like "Plonk", "Swill", and "Rotgut". They'd fit in the eggs pretty well, and it isn't like I ever use them.