One holiday late, one turkey short.

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I hate to see food or drink go to waste.

Such a feeling should prompt me to volunteer at a food bank or sumthin’, but for me, it means I eat food that the kids leave on their plates or drop on the floor. I’ve even heard the ol’ lady tell the kids, after a spill, “Don’t worry about it Dad will get to it.”

Makes me proud that the family appreciates the little things I do around the house.

When the young’in spills juice on the counter, I curl my tongue and slurp it up just like a human fly. Waste not, want not.

Whatever that means.

Now the ol’ lady is fixin’ the Thanksgiving dinner. This year, it’s just the lady and me and the two girls. Which is nice.

We are taking a few shortcuts on everything but the turkey, that gets the old fashioned treatment. A recipe handed down for four generations.

In my family, most the ladies get knocked up by 15, so that means the recipe has been around since 1950, which is a really long time considering most males in my family work the mines and die before 30 when their new babies are just a year old or so.

Lot of single moms in my family.

Basically it’s this, we get three boxes of shake n’ bake, pour it into a kitchen garbage bag, drop in the turkey and shake er’ up real fierce like. We cook it just like the instructions in the Betty Crocker cookbook published in 1948, which pretty much matches whatever is written on any turkey package. We like to use the Betty Crocker reference so it sounds, just, so, so.

Don’t forget to put foil over the top after the first hour!

Krispy turkey –AND I HELPED!!!

The rest was a cinch. We bought mashed potatoes from Kentucky Fried’, warmed Green beans from a can. Got cranberry sauce from a can, next was stuffing. Not so easy.

We wanted to use left over stuffing from the freezer. No problem for a handy man with a butter knife.

Chip, chip, “Damn it.” Chip, chip, “Damn it.” Chip, chip, “Damn it!”
Chip, chip, chip, chip, chip, chip, chip, chip, chip, chip, chip, chip, CHIP!

“Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it, DAMN IT!”

No good. But I meant business so I got the soldering iron. Got that stuffing out but I also poked a hole in the freezer. With all that ice on the freezer wall I couldn’t get the duct tape to stick, so I plugged it up with silly puddy. Worked just fine.

The meal was just fine.

Until a few hours later, my tummy started gurgling and churning. I didn’t think much of it, I just figured I ate too much turkey skin since the girls don’t like it and it’s my job to finish it up.

It gurgled and churgled through two beers when I felt a feelin’ that I usually don’t feel unless I’ve been drinkin’ Tequila straight out of the bottle, which usually means I’m about to hurl.

I run to the closest bathroom and little gurl 1 is on the toilette.

Knowing I only have a matter of seconds, I run to the kitchen, clear out the sink with the garbage disposal and “Splaaaaaaat. Cough, cough. Splaaaaaaat.”

I tried to aim for the garbage disposal, but the pink jello shoot straight down, traveled the curved edge, and because of the shear force of it, shoot up the side only to hit me square in the forehead where it dissipated in all directions.

Kitchen cleanup after dinner was a little bit more of a chore this year than it was last year.

All in all, it was good.


COMING NEXT: I drink saki for the first time!