Floyd and I have been married for 32 years. Our very first Thanksgiving, we were stationed in England and he invited over several single GIs for dinner. They were far from home. Both of us were military and knew what it was like to be away from our families over the holidays. Well, neither one of us had ever cooked a turkey before. Floyd pulled out the cookbook and followed the directions as he prepared the turkey. That started a tradition in our house. He prepared the turkey every Thanksgiving after that.
Last Thanksgiving, the supermarket had turkeys on sale for a phenomenal price, so Floyd picked up two of them. Well, they take up a lot of room in my chest freezer, so I decided we’d have a Thanksgiving dinner in March, so I pulled a turkey out of the freezer and threw it into the fridge to thaw a week before our dinner.
We planned our dinner for Saturday, March 24th and invited Jamie (our daughter), Donnie (her husband), and Cheryl (a friend) to enjoy it with us. Wouldn’t you know, Floyd had to work that day. Cheryl said, “No problem. I know how to cook a turkey.” Relief set in. Cheryl would prepare the turkey and I could help her like I help Floyd. Or, at least, that was my intention. But it didn’t quite work out like I expected.
Saturday morning I get home from karate, changed real quick, and joined Cheryl in the kitchen to start preparing our turkey for the oven. A few weeks earlier, Cheryl had taken a bad fall and tore a ligament in her right hand. It was still healing, so she couldn’t lift the turkey. It was too heavy for her.
I pulled the turkey out of the refrigerator and swung it onto the counter. Boy, did it thaw out good. I dripped blood all over the floor. And there was a nice puddle under the vegetable drawer at the bottom of the refrigerator. We had to clean the refrigerator, although we didn’t do it right then.
Cheryl said, “I can’t find a weight on this thing. Go get the scales.”
I fetched the bathroom scales from upstairs and put it on the floor. I did not want to set the turkey directly on the scales for obvious reasons, so I set a brown paper bag on the scales. Then I pulled the turkey from the sink and set it onto the brown paper bag. What a mess I made. Turkey juices everywhere! All over the floor; all over the brown bag. And then I realized, the brown bag covered up the number, and I couldn’t read the weight. Next I tried to cover the scales with plastic wrap, but it only clung to itself; I couldn’t get it to cling to the scales. As a last resort, I wiped down the scales with a Clorox wipe and set the turkey directly on the scales. It said 11 pounds. There was no way. I guessed the turkey weighed 18 or 20 lbs. I wiped the scales down again, and this time, I stood on it. After I weighed myself, I picked up the turkey. Thirteen pounds difference.
Cheryl and I gave up trying to weigh the turkey. We had an approximate weight. That would give us an estimate cooking time. And the turkey had a button. That would tell us exactly when it was done. With that in mind, we went to work preparing the turkey to go in the oven. And Cheryl said to me, “Okay, now what do you want me to do?”
And I thought that Cheryl was preparing the turkey. Surprise! Surprise! She looked to me for guidance. We prepared the stuffing, stuffed the turkey, covered it with aluminum foil, and I put it in the oven. We planned to eat at 4:00. The turkey wasn’t done until about 5:30. Surprisingly, it was pretty good – tender and juicy.