The chemistry of Easter eggs (or the lack thereof in D.C.)

What in your bunny basket today? Because you shouldn’t expect anything from the lying orange’s White House this year. Consider this from February:

Look out, Easter Bunny. You may be next.

President Trump hasn’t embraced many of Washington’s traditions. No Alfalfa Club dinner; no White House Correspondents’ Association dinner; no active first lady; no visits to D.C. schools, businesses or restaurants (except the one in his hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue); no trips to Camp David; and very few weekends even spent in Washington.

And the largest annual public event at the White House — the Easter Egg Roll — is still a big mystery.

The logistics that go into security, crowd control, activities and invitations for something this size are insane. Last year, 35,000 parents and children attended. Yet, no one has heard that any of the work is being done on this year’s event with only seven weeks to go.

A website that is not associated with the White House but is obsessed with the Easter Egg roll posted that the roll is set to be held on April 17 and promised that details will soon follow. But go to the official White House website and you get “no results” when you ask about anything Easter-related. And my efforts to reach anyone at the White House about it were unsuccessful.

President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama cheered on the kids at their final White House Easter egg roll in 2016. (Shawn Thew/European Pressphoto Agency)

Parents here in the nation’s capital and around the country keep checking. It’s kinda like waiting to get concert tickets. Only no one’s sure there’s going to even be a concert.

And this is driving parents crazy. February is the season for summer camp planning and entering the Easter Egg Roll lottery. Doesn’t the White House know this? The Trumps have a 10-year-old, after all.

When the godless commie Kenyan Muslim usurper was in the White House, the Easter Egg roll ran without problem. Now that we have a Christian conservative coalition approved pseudo-fascist in the Oval Office, the bunny is screwed.

I mean, who knew an Easter Egg roll could be so complicated?

WASHINGTON — President Trump received an urgent warning in February, informing him of a crucial date he was about to miss.

“FYI manufacturing deadlines for the Easter eggs are near,” said a Twitter post directed at Mr. Trump; the first lady, Melania Trump; and the president’s daughter Ivanka Trump. “Please reach out!”

The message came from Wells Wood Turning & Finishing, the company that supplies commemorative wooden eggs for the annual White House Easter Egg Roll, the 138-year-old celebration that has drawn 35,000 people to the South Lawn in recent years.

The staff of the company, based in Buckfield, Me., wondered whether the Trumps planned to continue distributing the wooden eggs as party favors, or whether they were even going to have a White House Easter Egg Roll at all.

By early March, the White House announced that the roll was on — Monday, to be exact — and soon followed up with a rush order for the wooden eggs.

By that time, the ovoid uncertainty had raised a question perhaps not as consequential as investigations into Russian interference in the presidential election, a legally dubious travel ban and a collapsed health care bill, but no less a window into the inner workings of the Trump administration: Could this White House, plagued by slow hiring and lacking an on-site first lady, manage to pull off the largest, most elaborate and most heavily scrutinized public event of the year?

“It’s the single most high-profile event that takes place at the White House each year, and the White House and the first lady are judged on how well they put it on,” said Melinda Bates, who organized eight years of Easter Egg Rolls as director of the White House Visitors Office under President Bill Clinton. “I’m really concerned for the Trump people, because they have failed to fill some really vital posts, and this thing is all hands on deck.”

White House party catastrophes have been the stuff of presidential nightmares in the past. During his first year in office, President Barack Obama drew harsh criticism for lax security procedures after a pair of aspiring reality-show celebrities successfully crashed a state dinnerhonoring the prime minister of India, with one of them managing to buttonhole Mr. Obama for a handshake.

The late start in planning by the Trump White House points to a smaller and less ambitious Egg Roll than in previous years. There may be half as many guests, a fraction of the number of volunteers to manage the invasion of the South Lawn, and military bands in place of A-list entertainers like Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Idina Menzel and Silentó who have performed for Egg Rolls past.