We eat turkey once a year, an annual ritual of gargantuan portions and pitiful willpower - gorging ourselves on the flesh of the hapless turkey, who gobble-gobble their way through life waiting for their ultimate destiny. Disemboweled, decapitated, naked and stuffed up the wasoo with all manner of bread, vegetables and spices the humiliated turkey awaits our drooling gob with only one saving grace – its dead!
Ahh, but the lowly turkey fights back from beyond the grave. Tantalized by its heavenly smell and hypnotized by its tender juicy meat we eat. And eat, and eat and eat. A side of buttery mashed potatoes, a side of stuffing, a side of cranberries for variety. Top it all off with the turkey’s secret weapon – gravy. Luscious liquid fat emulsified to perfection with salt and pepper and thickened enough to coat it all, over and over again. A gallon or two of love and culinary perfection forcing us to lose control and stuff our face – a perfect revenge.
A bloated carcass we become, flat out on the couch wondering if we’ll live to eat another meal. Our stomach distended like a 12 month pregnancy, we beg for relief. A tryptophan coma soon catches hold – a turkey’s chemical warfare. We struggle to stay awake, unable to move, barely able to grab the remote. We struggle but manage to find a football game, then, lights out.
We recover hours later to the sounds of screaming kids and a scowling wife, barely able to blink an eye at the chaos around us, forced to help clean up from the carnage. The smell of cold turkey wafts past our noses and we tighten our throats, forced to hold back a hurl. Barely able to get to the sink because of our new girth, we struggle to clean off the mixture of dried gravy, potatoes, crusty cranberry sauce and other unidentified bits of food off the mountains and mountains of dishes.
You sleep it off, almost forgetting the hardship the vengeful turkey had inflicted upon you the previous day. Until lunchtime today and many many many days later. LEFTOVERS!
Touché Turkey – until we meet again next year!
