We had a turkey in the freezer, so my Dad decided we didn't need to buy our usual 30 pounder, but would settle for the 22 lb one that we already had.
The turkey sat, wrapped in its celophane jacket, slowly defrosting for our consumption pleasure. We had no idea what horrors lurked underneath.
Dad snipped open the wrapper and we discovered that the plastic was the only thing holding the bird together. The one leg swung wildly down out of its socket, pulling all of the skin away from the meat. Dad tried to pick it up and found that the backbone was broken as was the breastbone.
We managed to get it into a somewhat turkey looking shape and even managed to stuff it, though it took more nails and string than normal to hold it all together. It was looking pretty good. It had us fooled.
My Dad is one of those, slow-cook-the-turkey-all-night-long kind of guys and his turkeys always come out tender and juicy. The only downside for him is that he has to get up throughout the night to baste it. That's never been a problem before.
At about 7:30 I was abruptly awakened from slumber by a loud noise and a yelp. My body was instantly awake. However, my brain took several moments to process everything. This is how it went.
What was that?
It's 7:30.
Dad's probably basting the turkey.
That was a loud noise.
He doesn't yelp like that.
HE DROPPED THE TURKEY!!!!!
I bolted out of bed and ran upstairs.
Because of the mishapen state of our turkey we had to put it into a different pan than usual. Instead of foil, it has a metal lid. Dad pulled out the turkey and basted it, but when he tried to slide it back into the oven, the lid caught and tipped everything toward him.
The lid fell off onto the floor, neatly catching some of the juices and Dad caught the turkey and flipped it back into the pan, saving it and the stuffing. However, he got splattered with the boiling grease, which wasn't very fun.
Then we had the fun of mopping stuffing and grease off of the linoleum. But wait! There's more!
As the pan tipped, it dumped a lot of the juices and grease onto the stove door where it trickled down inside the door. When we closed the oven it rained down into the drawer under the stove onto the pots and pans stored there. So after mopping the kitchen, we then got to wash every single pan we own, including those fun broiler pans with all of the ridges and holes. Then there's the enjoyment of finding somewhere to store them while we clean grease and stuffing out of the bottom of the drawer and wait for it to dry.
Of course, now the greases are in the door itself, so we have to pull the door off the oven, take it outside, disassemble it, clean it, reassemble it and put it back onto the oven so we could cook the rest of dinner. Fortunately we have a little side oven that was not affected by the turkey disaster, so we were able to get a jump start on the few things that would fit in there.
Did this deter us from enjoying our Thanksgiving repast? Not a whit!
Mmmmm. Turkey. You may fight back, but we will eat you anyway. Just don't try anything next year.
