A TURKEY STORY

I hate birds.

I won't date a man who has a bird.

I wear this badge with pride.

It all stems from a crisp fall day in 1982. I am a wee 3 years old. Alexander is my best friend and we often play wonder woman on the playground where he always gives me his red hooded sweatshirt as a cape. He crafts me villains to hunt and saves me from things like spiders and always sleeps on my mat at nap time. He is the best friend a girl can have.

Thanksgiving is approaching and the pre-school is decked out in little hand print turkeys and Indian feather headbands. It is a time for sweaters. Cute ones with crocheted leaves and shiny pearl buttons. This is in fact what I am sporting the morning of our Thanksgiving Show and Tell, with some awesome corduroy pants. Love the 80's!

The excitement is palpable on the play yard. Alexander has a Show and Tell surprise! 20 tiny faces stare wide eyed as he leads out his pride and joy, a GIANT pet turkey! Oh the wonder and strangeness of this creature, who is taller than all of us. The group of munchkins gingerly steps forward to investigate. Except for one little blonde girl who is watching, rooted to her spot, left alone from the protection of the pack.

Pop! Up shoots the turkey head, beady eye turned to the straggler. Wink, wink go the buttons on her sweater. As if calling an SOS to the turkey. With a hideous cry the turkey bolts from the blob of children and breaks into a dead run. He must have those shiny, winky, pearl buttons!

In the blink of an eye (a beady turkey eye), the girl is knocked to the ground by the brute force of 30 pounds of mad turkey. He stands proudly on his conquest and flaps his wings in victory. Let the carnage begin! Peck! Peck! Peck! "Must have buttons" runs through his tiny turkey brain like a ticker tape. He is ignorant to the screams of terror from the owner of the sweater and buttons. Her tears mean nothing to him. This is full scale battle. The battle of the button.

As you by now have gathered (if your brain is bigger than our turkey's), the girl is me. I don't remember how I came to be relieved of the turkey, as I had fainted. I awoke dusty, tear stained and bloody inside the nap room. Outside I could hear Alexander's anguished cries and the teachers discussing just what they were going to tell my Mother.

From that day forward I snubbed Alexander, how could he ever recover in my eyes? The boy couldn't control his turkey! And each Thanksgiving I relish eating another turkey dinner.

The preceding story is entirely true. Happy Thanksgiving!! Go eat a turkey!

xoxo, wee