The Flying Legless Turkey and the Thanksgiving Hot Dog Roast

The day started much as any other day in the Cutter household except for the fact that two visiting dignitaries were seated at the breakfast table with me that morning. My wife's parents were visiting from overseas for a few weeks through the holiday season and although they didn't celebrate Thanksgiving in their country, they had definitely come to love the ensuing feast that accompanied the celebration. Papa, as her father was affectionately referred to had developed a particular taste for turkey and giblet gravy and as my wife set a plate of scrambled eggs and toast in front of him for his breakfast, he pushed it away and hungrily eyed the turkey that was cooking in the electric roaster that sat perched atop the kitchen counter. "I wait for turkey" he said as he crossed his arms in front of him and sank his chin into his chest. Although he was from South America, he seemed to speak his broken English with a decidedly Russian accent. This accent matched his physical appearance as he was a portly man, large in stature and consistently held an indiscernible expression on his face that you could never be quite sure if it was boredom or dismay. To complete his Soviet appearance, his arms were almost always crossed upon his chest and he sported an imitation fur cap that bore a striking resemblance to a Russian Officer's cap which he wore to protect his head from the cold that was not customary in their country. He eyed me momentarily as I devoured my eggs and gave a quiet, "Hrmph".

My wife's mother sat poised at the opposite side of the table and daintily partook of her breakfast as she elegantly sipped her coffee. She was a truly classy woman and it always seemed that she was posed for an impromptu glamour shot. She held a prim and proper stature and showed her age gracefully. She was a sharp contrast to her husband and together they made a perfectly odd yet oddly perfect couple. She was content in her meal and expressed as much in a brief praise spoken to her daughter in her native tongue. She made no effort to speak English but I often wondered if she knew exactly what I was saying when I was speaking it from the slight changes in her expression if I said something disagreeable.

My wife scurried off to prepare herself and the house for the number of guests that would soon be lining our table for the Thanksgiving dinner that she had been preparing since 3:00 that morning. I scanned my "to do" list while finishing the last of my coffee. I cleared the plates from the table and loaded them into the dish washer before indicating to Papa and Mama that I needed to rearrange the kitchen table with the drop leaf table from the living room and retrieve some chairs from the garage. I extended the drop leaves on either side of the table and pushed it up against the dining room table before retreating to the garage to fetch the additional metal folding chairs and folding card table. Upon my return, I caught papa examining the undercooked turkey with an ever increasing hunger in his eye. At that moment, my wife emerged from the hallway and uttered a noise much like a command you would deliver to a child. Papa sheepishly withdrew his hand and gave his daughter a delicate and tender look of guilt. He then walked over to me and began helping me to dust off and set up the chairs but not before he looked down at me through his thick eyeglass lenses with that indiscernible expression again. What was that look?

After the table and chairs were set up, I removed the china and silver from the cupboard and did my best to remember which side the forks went on and where the wine glass went in relation to the water glass. Mama quietly followed me around the table and corrected my mistakes as she hummed a delightful tune. After she was finished she stood back in a picturesque pose and a slight smile came across her face. She then turned slowly and began to walk down the hall in model like strides. She passed my wife as she entered the kitchen and set a number of small pieces of folded white cardboard onto the counter.

"I preheated the oven to 350 degrees for the rolls and these are the name tags for all of the guests." She said as she turned. "Sit my parents, sister, and niece together and remember to give your dad a comfortable chair." She instructed as she disappeared back into the bathroom.

I looked at the temperature on the oven and then eyed the name tags as Papa eyed me. I quickly devised a seating arrangement in my mind and began to lay the name tags out according to my mental plan. Papa watched, arms ever crossed and chin sunk deep into his chest peering through those thick lenses. His imitation fur hat was now cocked slightly to the right. As I finished setting the last name tag upon the plate, he approached slowly from behind me. I heard the slish-tap, slish-tap of his slippers upon the linoleum floor as he approached. I stepped back and stood shoulder to shoulder with him facing the table.

"You there?" he said as he pointed to the head of the table.

"Yes...me there." I replied.

"Turkey here?" he continued as he pointed to the spot directly in front of my place setting.

"Yes...turkey there." I replied confidently.

"Me there?" he questioned as he pointed at the other end of the table.

I realized where he was going with this and tried to explain as best I could that his position was a seat of honor, a position reserved for dignitaries at the "other" head of the table. He quickly interrupted me and in a quick report stated, "Head of table" as he pointed to my seat and then said, "Foot of table" as he pointed to his seat. He walked over to his name tag and pinched it between his robust thumb and forefinger. He brushed past me as he picked up my name tag and replaced it with his. I grasped for the nametag in his fingers and said, "No, Papa...you there, me here." But he would have nothing to do with it. As the ensuing struggle of arm wrestling and arguing began, I noticed a deep, dark scent in the air. I turned to the oven to see a billow of black smoke dancing from around the edges of the door and trailing up the honey colored wooden kitchen cabinets. At the same moment, the fire alarm began a shrill piercing cry alerting the household of the emergency.

I released my grasp on the name tag and Papa continued in his mission of reassigning seating undaunted by the ever growing cloud of smoke. I raced to the kitchen as my wife rounded the corner sporting a hairbrush that was entangled in her long black hair. I threw open the oven door and was met with a face full of acrid black smoke. I swatted away the billows to identify the source of this commotion but before I could discern the charred contents of the oven, a sharp crack reported from the front door. As the door swung open the door handle sunk into the drywall, the wood door frame splintered, and the brass frame latch from the handle sailed across the room and thumped Papa in the chest before coming to rest atop his crossed arms. He tilted his chin slightly deeper in his chest to examine it before emitting a disapproving "Hrmph".

Three firemen rushed through the front door, two carrying a hose and the third holding a fire extinguisher. I held up my hands in a halt position and cried, "Not the hose!" As my mouth gaped to form the "O" in hose, I was met with a blast of white powder exuded from the extinguisher toted by the third fireman which covered a vast majority of the kitchen. Now let me take a moment to say a few words about the firemen of our fine community. The fire alarm in the kitchen hadn't been activated for more than 10 seconds before they entered my house which would have normally delighted me. But these were the same firemen that let my neighbor's car two doors down burn in his driveway untouched for a full hour and twenty minutes before they responded. The car burned so hot that it turned the cement driveway into volcanic glass and melted his son's yellow smiley faced basketball backboard into something that looked like it was grimacing from having it's eye poked out. I can only surmise that they were aware of my wife's tendencies to "store" things in the oven and then turn it on without checking to see what was in it first so they had parked their rigs outside in preparation for the seasonal fire. I thanked the firemen for their quick response and bravery in action and before they departed, one of them handed my wife a pamphlet on fire safety and fire prevention. As he walked out the door, he pointed to the broken brass doorframe latch and said, "You should probably get this fixed."

My wife closed the door behind them and gave me a quick look of disgust before returning to the bathroom to continue her preparation. I slowly removed the oven rack and began to examine what I can only surmise was the remains of a burnt bag of Doritos and what appeared to be a melted Tupper-Ware container of either brownies or rice crispy treats. I deposited the smoldering objects, oven rack and all into the garbage can and reached next to the stove to retrieve a fresh oven rack from the stack that we had stocked up on a few years before. Papa handed me the brass doorframe hasp and said, "You fix this," before sauntering down the hall. I'm not sure but I think I may have heard him lightly chuckle.

A knock came at the door that slowly crept open from the pressure of the hand that delivered it. My father's smiling face and arms full of casserole dishes appeared in the widening crack as I caught a glimpse of my mother standing in the driveway giving each of the firemen a cookie and thanking them for their service. My father eyed the missing hasp and cracked wood of the frame and said, "You should fix this," before he entered the kitchen and dispersed the plastic and ceramic containers about the counter. As my mother entered the door she said, "Don't worry, I have extra rolls and I'm keeping them warm in case something like this came up." Hugs and kisses were exchanged and my wife, now dressed in her Sunday best emerged from the hall. Again greetings were exchanged as my mother droned on about the smell of the turkey (which was actually burnt Doritos and melted plastic) and how she made this and brought that. She busied herself with laying out the deserts on the card table set off to the side of the dining room as my father found a comfortable seat in the living room and began to doze off.

Papa and Mama emerged fully dressed for the occasion and greetings were exchanged between the two sets of in-laws, mine speaking slow and loud English as if this would magically break the translation barrier and hers smiling and nodding throughout the entire ordeal. I examined the place settings and moved to the head of the table to again exchange my name tag for Papas but as I turned, I was met with his portly frame with arms crossed as he glared at me through his glasses.

"Head, not foot," He calmly stated in a stern whisper. I was rescued by my wife who snatched both of the name tags from our hands as she instructed me to go and take a shower and get ready for dinner. I smiled at Papa and nodded contently as she placed my name at the head of the table and his name at the "foot". He glared that indiscernible expression at me and gave a "Hrmph" as he crossed his arms once again into their customary position lofted atop his chest. What was that look?

When I returned from my shower, the number of house guests increased to include my sister-in-law Gracie, her daughter Darla, and dear old Uncle Ted. Gracie gave the customary one kiss on the cheek and a hug before she rattled off a few phrases that were spoken much too rapidly for me to translate. Darla equally delivered the same greeting except that she was able to do so without missing a single letter of text messaging on her ever present cell phone. Uncle Ted was dressed in a sateen olive drab army jacket and sported a black beret. His long white hair was gathered up in a ponytail. He sat on the couch re-counting a story of when he raised the flag over Iwo Jima during the Korean War as he sipped on the bottle of wine that was initially intended to be reserved for the dinner toast. "Iwo Jima in the Korean War," I whispered to myself for a moment before shaking it off as a misunderstanding. His audience was my father who was dozing in his chair and my wife's niece who was too engrossed in her telephone to hear him. It was then that I heard the familiar scratching of a dog at the back door as I noted, "Oh good, your sister brought her dog, Weasel so that he could scratch up the door that I just repainted last week. Maybe we could give him a turkey bone to choke on and a nice chocolate bar for desert." My wife delivered a silencing sneer and then returned to a conversation with her Papa.

After a few minutes of light discussion and formalities, my wife announced that the meal was ready to be served and Papa quickly rushed to the head of the table before his elegant wife called his name and simply looked down at his assigned seat. His eyes fell to the floor in a sheepish expression of dismay as he hunched his shoulders and sauntered back to his seat looking back at the head of the table with longing eyes. My wife presented the turkey to the table and I stood to say grace. We all joined hands and Uncle Ted suddenly broke into a heartfelt rendition of grace that was a combination of something resembling a cross between a prayer and a Vietnam war story about how he lost his toes in the frostbite of the winter there. I eyed him quizzically wondering how far north one would have to go in Vietnam to get frostbite but not wanting to ruin the sentiment of the moment, thanked him for his lovely words. As I grasped the fork and carving knife in my hands, my mother quickly stood and brushed me out of the way. "I'll do that for you." She said sternly as she sunk the fork into the turkey. She then turned and started to yammer on about how she had cooked and carved hundreds of turkey in her lifetime and that the taste of the turkey depended on the cut of the meat as well as the cooking and preparation. Her only audience, my wife's sister and mother smiled politely and nodded but with an obvious look of not understanding a word that this woman was saying.

My father's head tilted back slightly as he dozed in his chair and Darla announced that she would not be partaking of the turkey as she had taken a vow of vegetarianism and only ate unprocessed, free ranging vegetables and cereals that were white. She produced a bottle of un-homogenized goat milk and a package of crackers made only of free ranging, unfarmed soy. To me that sounded more like a vow of celibacy, but to each their own and it meant more turkey for the rest of us. My wife noted that we should probably get some turkey on her father's plate soon because he was starting to tremble a little and tiny beads of sweat began to form on his forehead. He sat at the far end of the table in a trancelike state focused on the turkey that my mother had yet to slice. She continued on about how she loved to make turkey casserole and Uncle Ted chimed in that he had liked the turkey casserole C-Ration that they served him during his invasion of Grenada. I couldn't take it any longer and asked Uncle Ted, "What service were you in Uncle Ted?"

I believe that he answered with, "The Salvation Army Reserve" but the events that unfolded after that question rolled off of my tongue all seemed to fuse together in a jumbled flash and blur in my mind. Darla looked up from a text message on her fun and swung her hands wildly as she proclaimed, "Oh my God! I can't believe that Carla ate corn from a can! CORN FROM A CAN!" Her flailing arm tipped the bottle of un-homogenized goat milk across the table in front of the turkey. My wife, her sister, and her mother all stood quickly to grab napkins to stop the spill but the quick movement towards the turkey must have triggered some sort of primordial instinctive response from Papa. He launched himself over the table straight at the turkey and I'll swear that I heard him yell, "Viva!" but my wife emphatically denies that point. Apparently at one point of time in his life, Papa was a very athletic man but that time has long since passed. Papa's leap landed him somewhere on the seam between the two joined tables and the additional weight of Papa made the drop-leaf of the first table buckle under the pressure. This caused his head and chest to hit the second table and lift it in a sea-saw type fashion which subsequently launched all of the food including the turkey off of the table. Uncle Ted yelled "Hit the deck. Incoming!" as my mother gasped in disbelief. My wife's mother folded her hands daintily upon her knee, and my father jerked suddenly from his slumber to catch a lap full of green bean casserole. The turkey went sailing across the room but not before Papa managed to establish a hold on one drum stick which was quickly separated from the rest of the flying turkey. The golden brown carcass of the bird landed with a thud in the middle of the carpeted living room floor. The legs from the dining room table began creak and groan as they buckled from the impact. The left leg suddenly shot out and kicked up the folding leg of the card table holding the desserts. I watched as cream pastries, cookies, and pumpkin pies slowly tilted to one side before stacking up in a thick, gooey pile of sweet sugar and dough on the floor. The right leg of the table went next and caught poor Mama square between the eyes which toppled her over backwards. Amazingly, she stayed in perfect, elegant pose the entire way down and landed exactly how she was sitting. She sat there unmoving and if you didn't know that she was knocked unconscious, you might think that she was waiting for someone to take her picture from the ceiling.

Soon there after, Uncle Ted stated to low crawl on hands and knees towards the turkey. At that very moment, the broken front door swung open and the small and unassuming shape of Weasel, the half Chi Wawa/half Great Dane came bolting through the front door towards the turkey. We watched in great dismay as Uncle Ted produced a desert fork that he was palming like a prison shank and right before Weasel reached the grounded poultry, Uncle Ted sunk the fork deep into the snout of that poor dog. Weasel let out a yelp before biting Uncle Ted on the nose and retreating under the couch. Uncle Ted grasped the turkey with both hands and lept to his feet. He gingerly walked to the door and as he passed through, pointed at the splintered wooden doorframe and missing latch and said, "You really should fix that".

There was a dead silence in that house for the next few minutes as Papa picked himself up off of the floor grasping the only remaining turkey drum stick in his hand. My wife whimpered slightly as my mother stood frozen over the place where the turkey once was. Gracie and Darla were looking after Mama and dad brushed the green bean casserole from his lap. Always prepared for the unexpected, I simply rose to my feet, gave my wife a wink of knowing and went out to the back porch to light the grill. When I returned, she had already retrieved several packages of hot dogs from the freezer and had begun setting out all of the accompanying condiments. I cooked the hot dogs over the gas grill in silence and returned to the kitchen when they were all nicely toasted. By then, the various family members had cleaned up a portion of the broken china, spilled food containers and my father was standing atop a chair trying to remove the deviled eggs from the ceiling. We served the hot dogs on paper plates and ate from T.V. trays in the living room.

I stood with my arm around my wife and as I gently wiped a tear away from her eye with a paper napkin printed with a Thanksgiving theme. We looked across the room at all of our family members who were content to eat hotdogs...everyone that was except for Papa who was ravenously devouring his turkey leg. Weasel's snout sported a white bandage and it appeared that Mama was developing a nice shiner from her encounter with the dining room table leg. Darla sat texting on her phone as my mother droned on and on about something or another to Gracie as she politely nodded and smiled. A slight hint of happiness fell across Papa's face as he turned to my father and scooped up a small glob of mashed potatoes from my father's shoulder and licked it off of his finger. "Good turkey," he said as he held up the bare bone of the drumstick.

We had Oreos and ice cream for desert and nobody seemed to complain. We visited for a brief time after the meal before all of the guests departed for home. Papa and Mama decided to stay at my wife's sister's house that night but as they were leaving, Papa hugged my wife and patted her on the back as he said with a smile, "Good turkey". His face suddenly changed expression as he stepped back from my wife and looked at me. He crossed his arms and sunk his chin into his chest and that indiscernible look fell across his face once again. Mama nudged him gently with her elbow and he said, "Thank you." What was that look?

I stood in the kitchen staring at the mounds of garbage, spilled food dripping off of the table, the table leg that was protruding from the dining room wall, and the heap of broken china dishes that were collected and carefully laid atop the counter. My wife examined a cracked wine goblet in the sink as I mindlessly scraped the white residue of the fire extinguisher off the top of the stove with my fingernail. A knock came at the front door and it swung open revealing my mother's smiling face. "I forgot your father" she said as she went to retrieve him from the corner chair where he was snoring softly. She woke him gently and told him it was time to go. They again delivered hugs and kisses and my mom turned to my wife and said, "Your Uncle Ted sure does seem like a nice fellow." She turned and walked out the door but not before she stopped and pointed at the broken door frame latch and said, "You need to fix that."

My wife crossed her arms and sunk her chin into her chest much like her father had done and stared blankly at the floor. After a brief pause she looked up and tilted her head slightly to the side and said, "My Uncle Ted? I thought he was your Uncle Ted."