Flipping The Bird

You may find this hard to believe, but in my 53 years of life, I have never carved a Thanksgiving turkey. It’s not that I never wanted to, it’s just that it was always done by someone other than me. I suppose from the first year that I was born until he passed in 1983, my dad would carve the turkey every Thanksgiving.

Since I’ve been married and all the way up to last year, my wife’s father would do the honors. I don’t quite understand why this seems to be the job of the household patriarch, but my only concern was to eat. This year we weren’t sure if we would even have turkey as it would only be me, my wife, our 14-year-old daughter, my mom and our dog Buddy.

But my wife is all about family tradition, so she decided to still prepare a full-blown Thanksgiving dinner. Besides, she received a free turkey from our nearby Foodland, so we would not be denied the main course of the meal. This meant I had to carve the turkey. I didn’t realize how much responsibility this task really is.

I was doing it in the kitchen and plating the carved turkey on a platter that my grandma made. I was doing a good job, if I say so myself, and before you know it, I started to annoy everyone within earshot, who eventually left the kitchen while I finessed the bird. That’s when it came time for me to remove the drumsticks. As I held the leg I pushed the main body of turkey away from me while cutting in a downward motion.

Before I knew it, the knife went through but the turkey went flying off the platter, into the air and then skidding across the kitchen floor. Our dog Buddy saw this and went chasing after the flying turkey carcass. I had a vision of my family walking back in while Buddy had his way with the turkey, so I sprang into action and grabbed it before our dear canine could even smell the stuffing. I quickly rinsed the turkey in the kitchen sink and put it back on the platter.

During dinner, everyone commented on how moist the turkey was. If only they knew the secret was to douse it with copious amounts of dishwater.