Easter is only a few weeks away and my quest is underway.

For those of you who are reading this column for the first time (or since last Easter), I have an addiction — Gold Brick Eggs.

I can hear the groans from the regular readers and from the folks here at the paper, “Oh no, here we go again! The stupid ‘I love Gold Brick Eggs column for the umpteenth time!’”

Sorry, I can’t help it. Ralphie had his Daisy Red Ryder BB gun, Bugs Bunny has his carrots, Popeye has his spinach, Mikey has his Life cereal, Granny (the Beverly Hillbillies) had her “rheumatiz” medicine and I have my Gold Brick Eggs.

I didn’t know what they were until the Easter of 1968 when I bought my girlfriend in high school a large chocolate egg full of miniature Gold Bricks. She offered me one, I tasted it, and I was hooked. We broke up that summer, but the memory of the taste of that chocolate confection remained, and every Easter since I crave the Gold Brick Egg.

The Heavenly Hash egg is good and the chocolate marshmallow eggs are wonderful, and the chocolates you get at Christmas are great, but they don’t compare with that melt-in-the-mouth goodness of the Gold Brick in either milk or dark chocolate. And every year they get harder to find. Once I walk into a store and see the Easter candy on the shelf I begin my search for Gold Bricks.

Finding the elusive treat is a hard quest and I truly believe each year there is a shortage of Gold Brick Eggs in Mississippi because everywhere I go, whether it’s a big-box variety store, grocery or pharmacy, they get harder to find; darn near invisible.

And when I find them I greedily reach and grab as much as I can and do a balancing act to the register trying hard not to drop one egg. To me, they’re as precious as, well, gold. I also have two enablers in my wife and daughter who assist me in my search and buy eggs when they find them. My wife hides them so no one will take my precious treasure.

Now the time to Easter is ticking down and my searches have produced very little and I’m starting to worry if I will be able to build a stash that will keep me supplied well into the summer.

My only wish is that the Elmer Company, the New Orleans confectioner that makes the Gold Brick Egg, will have a sudden surge in production and make more of my favorite treat. It’s a silent prayer I make from Ash Wednesday through Good Friday.

But there is, borrowing a saying from the Vietnam War, “A light at the end of the tunnel.” While shopping at a local store I spied a bunch of Gold Brick Eggs in a display and grabbed as much as I could hold under the circumstances — six, if I remember correctly. Now, if they’ll hold me until Easter.