Turkey Massacre

     Last April, my husband was buying baby chicks at a feed store (because he thinks he’s a farmer) and he noticed some baby turkeys for sale. So, he decided to bring two turkeys home and when questioned about what we were supposed to do with these turkeys, he said we were going to have them for Thanksgiving. If you knew my husband at all, you would know that he really just wanted to keep them as pets. Growing up on a farm has taught me that all animals have a purpose and if you want a pet, you should get a dog!
     I had invited our entire family over for Thanksgiving, with the promise of an extremely fresh turkey. Kurt (my husband) and my brother-in-law Blake decided that they don’t exactly know how to murder a turkey and better figure it out. They proceeded to watch a video on You-Tube about how to butcher a turkey. I was shocked (as you all would be) at how many do-it-yourself turkey butchering videos there are! The video proclaims that it only takes about ten minutes, from start to finish. It just so happened that there was a blizzard in the works as poor Kurt is outside assassinating his turkey, which he has named Ed.
     After Kurt is mostly done plucking the carcass, he brings it into the house and wants me to gut it. There is simply no way I am about to do what I had thought was the worst part of the entire procedure because this was all his idea! After about three hours, Kurt had done a very good job of gutting it and, amidst awful gagging noises, even cut out the “poopsack,” as they so elegantly put it on You-Tube. There were still tons of black feathers all over the bird though and the legs are so sprawled out and gross that it won’t even fit in my roaster! Because it was so late in the evening, we put the giant 23 pound turkey in a garbage bag, and set it in the fridge to cool. It’s at this point that my husband turns to me and says, “I hate killing things! I don’t ever want to do this again!” I merely laughed because this was all his idea in the first place!
     It’s the day before Thanksgiving and this turkey looks horrible. It has so many feathers and quills in it that you would have a mouthful of feathers if you even tried to eat it. Of course I get the job of picking out every last feather and quill and I must say that it was the grossest thing I have ever had to do. The quills popped out of the turkey skin like blackheads on your face, but the absolute worst part is all the little fine feathers all over the skin. Cold, dead turkey skin freaks me out. After two hours of plucking minuscule feathers from the skin, I call it quits and decide that we’ll just have to carve the turkey super fast once it’s out of the oven because there’s no way anyone would eat it if they actually saw it. Good thing I’m a vegetarian! The entire “plucking” escapade could’ve been prevented if Kurt had plucked the bird while it was still warm, but I guess that’s just too much to ask when it’s snowing outside. He should be given some credit though because it was his first time and You-Tube was his teacher.
     Thanksgiving day comes and after the turkey is fully cooked, it looks like it is full of little blackheads everywhere there is skin. It’s decided by Kurt and I that this is the stupidest idea he’s ever had. Before we serve the turkey, which I am sure is going to make our whole family sick, we rip off the skin so no one can see what it really looked like. To our surprise though, our whole family loved it! My 83 year old grandfather said it was the best turkey he has ever eaten. I even had a little taste to see what all the fuss was about. I am proud to say that not one person got sick and that a new family Thanksgiving tradition had been born. Because the turkey was so tasty, my husband agreed that it’s worth it to raise and butcher our own turkey each Thanksgiving, but hopefully, as time goes on, he’ll get better at the whole not naming his turkey before he kills it thing.