Confession: Thanksgiving Nightmare

This time two years ago, I was sweaty and gross, covered in turkey, shell-shocked at what I had just done. (How's that for a hook?)

Thanksgiving is the day that, to me, kicks off the general holiday season. True, I get in the mood well before the actual day. Midnight October 31, the Halloween decorations come down and the Thanksgiving/Christmas decorations go up. The Christmas music plays and it starts to smell like cookies everywhere.

I don't eat turkey on Thanksgiving (or any other day...) but two years ago, I helped a friend of mine cook turkeys for a Thanksgiving dinner for some kids who were probably not going to have a traditional meal at home at a center she volunteered at. She needed me to go to her house that day and babysit two turkeys. I had to check their internal temperatures, inject them every few hours to keep them moist, and she would be home in the afternoon to carve them up. 

First problem with this plan...

I had never cooked a turkey before.

I hadn't. That's one of those grown up life skills you get when you move in with a boyfriend and host an awkward Thanksgiving where your families meet for the first time, not when you're a single grad student in an apartment 45 minutes from your Mom's cooking.

I know how to cook, but not meat. Even before I stopped eating it officially, I lived on peanut butter because I was terrified I'd do something wrong and give myself a tapeworm, but I can follow directions and hers were good. Simple. I checked the birds, cranked up the heat at noon when they weren't getting any warmer inside, I basted, I injected on the regular. 

It was pretty chill and I watched some Christmas lights competition show... and then I realized it was way past time for her to come back to carve these suckers. They were done. She should have been back.

She did not come back.

Setting up was crisis after crisis apparently, and she called to ask if I would be able to carve up the turkeys.

"Sure," I said. You know, like a liar.

But I am a grown ass man; I can figure this out, because what do all people my age do when they don't know how to do something? Youtube! I found this helpful video , and frankly, it seemed easy enough. 

To be so young and naive again...sigh...

You start with the drumsticks. Let's get real, you're cutting an animals legs off. I took the knife down the meat, just like the video said, and took my fork to start pulling it away from the body, so far so good, then it gets stuck. And the video says you have to give it a little twist sometimes. This guy was not going to give up his legs without a fight. Like a really real barbaric fight. I realized with that first leg that the knife was there in case the turkey came back to life. If any of that meat was getting off that carcass I was going to have to use my bare hands.

And that was when I called my Mom and in the span of less than a minute, I went through all five stages of grief over a turkey I didn't even know! 

Denial and Isolation. I don't need to cut it, I could just take it over as is right? I'm so alone.

Anger. She said she'd be back to do this! This isn't even my problem!!

Bargaining. I'll never speed again if this meat literally falls off the bone like they say in the movies.

Depression. Where do they keep the wine?

Acceptance. Wash your hands and rip the legs off this bird! Just do it!

And when I drove two massacred turkeys over to where they were holding the dinner, I couldn't look anyone in the eye. My fingers smelled like turkey for days, it was probably just my imagination, but I just felt greasy.

Hope nothing shakes your sense of self like this did mine, this Thanksgiving. But if it does, tell me everything!

*I kept wanting to capitalize the word 'turkey' like it's the country or a really important word. No clue why.