News break: Prices are climbing to $8 or even $10 per dozen eggs in major cities like Chicago.

I thought I had covered this item, but here it is again, and it looks like it’s gonna hang around. So we might as well make it pay off on the big stuff we face all the time, like gifts!

Now ties and shoes, dresses, jackets, fancy stuff like strings of pearls, diamonds and snowblowers used to be the gift everyone wanted. But now? Yes … that’s right, extra large eggs. Imagine the new world of gift giving. No more scanning catalogs, go right to the grocers in your neighborhood and grab all you can carry.

St. Patrick’s Day looms, but the Irish don’t get all worked up over fake saints. Well, some do, in Portland where the Irish tend to roost. And remember, the Irish are big egg fans. Cowboys fried them in a pan. GIs boiled them in their helmets.

So unless a miracle occurs and bird flu goes away, or rooster arthritis pops up, here are some ideas for the coming year.

Easter

A tip: Get yourself lots of the brightly colored plastic eggs at Walmart, and big baskets full of plastic grass. It’s Maine, you hide plastic in snowy, muddy, rainy holes in the yard. No more dyeing those big eggs.

Birthdays

Everybody has a birthday, even in March: wives, husbands, mothers and in-laws, girl and boyfriends all have birthdays.

Who doesn’t eat eggs? Now eggs surely are gonna get to somewhere like 15 bucks a carton and maybe even higher. They’re like diamonds now: thieves will break into your house, give a bone to your dog, skip your jewelry box and go straight to the fridge and take all your eggs. No kidding! The news tells us that burglars have been caught leaving steaks and chops and your mother’s soup behind and making off with the eggs!

And if you have chickens? Have they been tested for bird flu? Get them tested today. Lock them up or they’ll take them.

Graduation

Of course. Morning Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski will be there to hand out a fresh carton of egg with every diploma.

The wedding

The dining table where the guests all place their gifts? The polished table will now be stacked with Nellie’s extra large, Eggland’s extra large, and six or seven other brands. It’s going to get so bad, some say, that they’ll come gift-wrapped right in the market and the bride’s family will hire an armed guard to stand by or just maybe a couple of angry, hungry Dobermans.

Baby showers

Don’t forget showers. Guests will come to the soon-to-be mother’s showers not with a KeaBabies Baby Handprint and Footprint Kit, or “The Story of You Baby Book,” or custom diapers and things to hang over the crib, or plastic birds and owls, or even plastic eggs. You will arrive with a brightly wrapped carton of extra large eggs. Are you writing any of this down? This whole thing is gonna get really, really big. Your best friend will show up at the mother-to-be’s door next door with 12 brightly wrapped extra large, farm-raised, grass-fed eggs!

You watch, egg sketches will soon be on “SNL” with Kenan Thompson in a big yellow egg costume.

And Fred Armisen and Bowen Yang as egg thieves. And Heidi Gardner popping out of a giant egg!

Good morning America! How you want your eggs, buddy? Fried? Boiled? Over easy? Sunny side up?

J.P. Devine is a Waterville writer.