This year's crowd was to be a small one. My mom, step-dad, brother and uncle would be joining my family of five for the main feast and then I was expecting appearances by a few other family and friends through out the course of the day. I was really looking forward to a great day and I'm happy to report that for the most part, my expectations were met. But as I'm sure you know, nothing every just happens for me without some sort of issues.
For quite a few years, I have been trying hard to shatter my image of always being a day late and a dollar short. I think because of this image (that I consistently reinforce, never by any fault of my own of course) that people believe that I just don't try hard enough or don't care enough. This couldn't be further from the truth. If anyone could just walk in my shoes for one day, they would learn that random and ridiculous things happen routinely that derail even my best laid plans. In this case, one of the first derailments was that my paycheck refused to come early. Sure payday is Friday, but Thanksgiving is THURSDAY. I held off shopping because I was praying my pay would come on Wednesday for no reason whatsoever. I think maybe this happened in years past so I was really expecting it again. Maybe I remembered incorrectly because for darn sure it didn't happen this year. Thank goodness I got worried enough to break down and buy all the food on my credit card Tuesday night.
At 9pm after a busy morning rushing the kids out the door, a long day of work, a traffic-filled commute home, feeding the kids dinner, cleaning it up and getting them off to bed, it was now time to go food shopping. My excitement was just bursting from my bones and it showed. I walked out the front door bidding my husband farewell as if I never expected to return. The expression on my face was that of exhaustion and resentment. He smiled contently and offered a cheery "bye babe!" as he laid comfortably on the couch in front of the fireplace watching TV. I was not a happy camper.
I arrive at the food store and find much to my surprise that it wasn't crowded at all. Maybe this won't be so bad. I'll zip through and work off my list. I should be out of here in no time. I found only a few items were sold out so I could just run to another store for that. No big deal. With most of the items from my list gathered, I went to select my turkey. I was worried that the frozen turkey wouldn't defrost on time, but since frozen was the kind you get for free, frozen was the kind for me.
I pick up a nice turkey and decided it should be good enough. I was looking for one that was 16 pounds, but this 17 pound one should be just fine. The nice guy working there saw me going in for the double-check and asked if I needed help. I should have just said no, but instead I said "well, I kinda wanted a 16-pound turkey, but..." and just like that he said, "I'll go check in the back" and he darted off. A moment later I thought to myself "you know, 16 pounds might be too small anyway". But what kind of jerk leaves when the guy is in the back trying to help you! I waited and waited for him to come back. Where the hell do they store the rest of the turkeys!?? I'm sure he's gone off site to check. He finally comes back nearly 10 minutes later and offers up a turkey the exact size I requested. I thanked him of course, but now what? I already have the turkey that I really do want in my cart. I put the second turkey on top and walked away wondering how to ditch the spare. After a few minutes, I saw he walked away and I hurriedly dropped the unwanted turkey into my kid's arms and ordered him to hurry up and put this back before the guy sees! We got away with it.
Things seemed to be going pretty smoothly for once...that is if you don't count the part about me being in tremendous pain. I don't know what was going on, but something was making me have to stop every few steps doubled over in abdominal pain. It hurt so badly that I was getting dizzy and I actually considered talking to my teenager about what to do if I collapse or cough up blood. It was bad. Real bad. But I had to press on for the sake of Thanksgiving.
I get to the register and find that I have chosen the cashier that wants to discuss her life story with the very clearly uninterested lady in front of me. I just want to get the hell out of here already and I'm sure the lady in front of me felt the same. I loaded my goods onto the checkout counter and told the cashier to ring up the food first so I could get my free turkey coupon and then ring that up next. She kindly complied and then kindly informed me that I was short of earning a turkey. "By how much?" I ask, thinking that I could just grab a few more items. Yea, I was $90 short of a free turkey. Great. Now that I realize I will be paying for my turkey, I figure I may as well get the freshie.
I lug this big frozen seventeen-pounder all the way back to the frozen turkey pit - conveniently located at the opposite end of the store. I head over to the fresh turkey case, ready to start digging but my efforts are met with some lady who seems to be staking claim of the whole bin. She stood right in the middle and was just standing there browsing but not touching a thing. There were only a few left to chose from, so I imagined she shouldn't take long. Ever polite, I try to browse around off to the side until she's through. Alright, she's clearly here for the long-haul so I'm going to have to get in there at some point. I offer a pleasant "excuse me" as I stand beside her trying to get in. She doesn't budge. In fact, she ignores me entirely. At this point, every fiber of my being is screaming "throw a turkey at her face!" but I took the high road and restrained myself. Instead I just leaned into her as I reached for the turkey that she quite obviously was preparing to pick up. Too bad lady, you should have been nicer. Happy Thanksgiving to you now with your sub-standard turkey.
Quite content with my selection, I carry this one all the way through the store and back to the register. My teenager now practically laying on the cart in boredom, musters up the energy to pick his head up and acknowledge that I'm back. As I'm standing waiting my turn in line again, I noticed that there is a puddle next to me on the floor. I though, "gee, someone should clean that up before someone slips. How do you just leave a puddl-" wait as second - that's my turkey bleeding out all over the floor!!!!! I look down and find that my favorite wool sweater is also covered in the bloody rue. Just great. I slam the bird up on the checkout and inform her of the "spill" over there. I didn't feel the need to mention who did it considering the evidence was all over me. Unless she thought perhaps I had stopped to murder someone while shopping, I'm pretty sure she knew I was responsible.
As the turkey juice dried on my hands, they became increasingly sticky. I still had to reach into my purse for my card, sign the receipt and get my keys, gagging all the while. Everything was getting stuck to my hands and I was grossed out to the max. At least the shopping is done.
The night before Thanksgiving is when I realized that my turkey pan was gone. It had disappeared into thin air. Just vanished off the face of the Earth. As if it just grew legs and walked away. Certainly someone at some point had broken into the house and stolen my turkey roaster. This was not good. I told my husband of this issue and he assured me not to worry because he would pick one up tomorrow morning. At this point, I was much too tired to question whether this was a solid plan so I accepted it and went to bed.
Thanksgiving morning rolled around fast. My husband was up and out the door before I knew it. Let me back up for a second. About a week ago, my husband reminded me that he would again be participating in what is referred to as "The Turkey Parmesan Bowl". You see, every year he and his buddies that he rarely sees the rest of the year, get together and play soccer on Thanksgiving morning. It's probably the only day of the year that he plays a sport any more and one guy comes in only once a year from Italy to visit family and partakes in this annual event they've created. They love it. It's a tradition. Traditions are nice. Soccer is nice. Being a part of something is nice. Getting together with buddies is nice. Doing it on THANKSGIVING of ALL DAYS is not nice for your wife when she's home alone with 3 kids and cooking enough food to feed a small village. As always, I will come to my husband's defense and say he really doesn't go out and do much and rarely does he ever play soccer any more so I do feel bad to make a big deal out of it even though I can't help but want to. It's just such bad timing. BUT being the wonderful and supportive wife that I am, I wish him the best and remind him to stretch. As he leaves, I smile and wave as I suppress the intense frustration I feel boiling up inside. I manage not to accidentally say "Hey jerkoff, I hope you pull a groin muscle".
Back to that roasting pan - yea, I still don't have one. The hubs assured me he would pick it up on his way home and they should be done around 10 or 10:30 am. I have no choice in the matter now so let me start cooking everything else I have. I put the parade on for the kids and then begin my tireless efforts to divert their attention to the parade on TV. As I'm ranting and raving about how great the parade is and pointing out the various balloons, they barely even look up to see that big Garfield that I am freaking out about. Surely I'm not that into Garfield any more, but it's all I could do to make them think it was something they shouldn't miss. It's just that I loved the parade as a kid - that whole feeling of smelling the food cooking and watching the parade, I want to share that warm memory and feeling with my kids. Problem is, they clearly don't give a rat's ass about this parade or anything else I have to say. I gave up and switched my focus to the fact that it's now 10:45 am and there is no roasting pan in my hand. I call my husband's cell phone and there's no answer. Of course. It's always when things are most urgent that phone calls go unanswered. According to the label and weight of the turkey, I would have to get this sucker in the oven before 11am if we wanted to eat by 4pm. It's coming dangerously close and I'm getting nervous.
I finally get in touch with my husband and they are still in full-on game mode. Not even close to finishing up. When I reminded him that it's Thanksgiving and I have this turkey sitting here just begging to be roasted and that he told me he would get me a roasting pan and be done by around 10 or 10:30, I was basically told that he never said that. The roasting pan part was true, he knew he had to get that but evidently we have PLENTY of time left because he can't understand why I'm freaking out. Also, he can't understand where I got this false information about him being home by 10:30am. He explained in the gentlest way possible that there was no way he would be home that early. I then rebutted ever-so-kindly that he did in fact tell me that, and this was the only thing that kept me from bugging out about the whole thing last week when he told me he was going. (by "gently" and "ever-so-kindly" I mean we snapped at each other in the nastiest and most sarcastic way possible, just shy of name calling and spiking the phone on the ground).
I had no choice but to go to Plan B - which included calling my sister and bitching about the whole morning not going right. I also called my mother, my brother and everyone I know. Well, not everyone - probably just those 3. Luckily, my sister was nice enough to bring me a roasting pan. I skipped stuffing it to save on cooking time and I got the turkey in the oven a few minutes past 11am. It was that very moment that my husband came busting through the front door asking why I had to get my sister to bring it when he told me he would get it! I ain't got time for THAT so I just left it with the always dreaded "whatever!".
With my husband home now and all the food prepared and cooked, and the turkey roasting nicely in the oven we were able to get everything in order and straightened up ready for our guests. I made some beautiful appetizers and we were just going to take it easy and relax. Small crowd means less pressure so let's just enjoy. All was forgotten and my husband and I were back in each other's good graces again.
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| My appetizer |
I had planned to warm up the rest of the already prepared and cooked dishes in the oven after I took the turkey out so that we could eat just before 5pm. This was not working out as planned. 5pm came and went with the turkey still looking like we only put it in 40 minutes ago. I couldn't wait any more and the kids were about to eat their limbs so I started putting in all the sides so that we could eat them while we wait for the turkey to finish cooking. The mac n cheese got burned. Son of a bitch. I should have never cooked it first. Oh well, at least my stuffing concoction came out great!! Cranberry walnut cornbread stuffing - I'll never eat stuffing any other way!!
We dined and enjoyed all of the side dishes and were already pretty full, but still saving room for the main course. I took the turkey out at 6 - now 2 hours past the expected cook time. It still doesn't look done. I cut a leg off to check and it was basically still raw! I had to carve the whole thing up and put it back in the oven to cook in pieces!! It had to have been the driest turkey anyone has ever eaten aside from the turkey in the Christmas Vacation movie. I've cooked a turkey every year for probably 10+ years now. I just don't know where we went wrong.
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| Butchered |
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