This happened two or three years ago when I was living with roommates while studying for my Masters.

My roommates decided to bake a brownie at 11 p.m. after dinner one night, perfectly normal for the general student class living together. A purely vegetarian roommate (the kind of person who did not ingest even eggs and did not know how to break them either, although eggs as soluble ingredients in food like cake and brownie were fine) was being helped by other roommates breaking eggs for her to put into the ready-made brownie mix and batter.

The vegetarian roommate (cheerfully) said, “Do you know? Egg whites are good for hair!”

The others nodded and murmured their agreements at first.

Then they started to notice the object that she was holding in her hands and referring to when she said, “It is good for hair”.

The vegetarian roommate continued gleefully, “You make a soufflé kind of thing out of these egg whites, apply it to your hair and then wash it off. It’ll make your hair shine!”

The others could not believe their eyes and ears anymore. They began to have disturbing visions…

So they asked her, “What exactly do you mean by ‘egg whites’?”

“These of course! These are egg whites”, said she, merrily … holding up none other than … the broken white EGGSHELLS!

Imagine the hilarious scenario of whipping up “the mistaken egg whites”, applying the tiny broken pieces to one’s hair and washing them off (actually attempting to), to get shiny (?!) hair!

The difference between ‘white eggshells’ and ‘egg whites’ was hastily explained to an enlightened purely veggie roomie and soon afterward, the deliciously baked brownie and hysterical laughter over the mistaken identity filled everyone’s belly that night.