Thanksgiving Spread

Basking under the lights, skin as brown and buttery as a ginger snap, the star of the layout sprawled across the centerfold like she had stock in staples.

“Beautiful.”

“Perfect.”

“That’s the one I’ve always dreamed of.”

“Don’t drool on the recipe.”

It’s girls night out and we’re gathered around the table checking to see what the beautiful people are having for Thanksgiving dinner. Glossy pages are open to a shimmering feast. There’s not a fried onion ring or can of mushroom soup in sight. The turkey is as flirtatious as a '40’s pinup girl, wearing nothing but a brown sugar and paprika rub. It’s enough to make me want to be a Spice Girl.

Every diet that has ever been tested and tossed aside is represented by our group. Elizabeth is low carb. Kaitlyn is high protein. I represent the “high sugar raises your metabolism so you can eat Ho Ho’s for breakfast” school of thought. If the road to hell is paved with whole wheat good intentions, the highway to heaven is coated with brown sugar.

“I’m tempted to give this one a go,” I said, scanning the ingredients for potentially recognizable items. “I have a guy bringing me a fresh turkey and I want a fancy new recipe.”

The room got quieter than the fifth grade gym during ballroom dance week.

“You’re going to cook a fresh turkey?”

“Sure. How hard can it be?”

“Ever tried to put pantyhose on a squid?”

I pondered my history for possible matches. “I dressed a toddler as a noodle one Halloween.”

“Close enough.”

The day before Thanksgiving I stood in front of the sink. The turkey, whom I’ve named J.R. Ewing because it has the largest spread I’ve ever seen, is sprawled in the kitchen sink like a centerfold model. One drumstick is propped coyly on the hot water faucet, and the toe of the other is stuck in the spray nozzle. There are so many pin feathers left, it looks like it needs a shave.

A fresh turkey is different from a supermarket sale bird that has had its legs trussed together and frozen into shape. Left to its own devices, the bird in my sink could probably out cancan any Rockette at Radio City.

I was trying to wrestle the thing into position to tie the legs together when the Captain and his faithful companion, Bo a sleek, by which I mean obese, black dog, half Labrador and half Dalmatian sauntered into the kitchen.

“What’s up Master Chief? Can’t you get the bad guy under control?”

“I don’t know if I’m cooking this bird or doing the cha-cha with it. It could take the prize on Dancing With the Stars, drumsticks down.”

“Need a hand?”

“Sure. I’ll hogtie it and you smear on the rub.”

After a few minutes we paused for breath.

“You were supposed to smear it on the turkey.” I flicked brown sugar from an eyebrow.

“This thing fights back. Are you sure it’s a turkey and not a kangaroo with a grudge?”

We dove back into the fray, and emerged, basted in sweat, a half hour later.

If generations follow the Thanksgiving tradition we set that day, there will be Rockwellesque paintings hanging on future walls with a man, woman, and big black dog covered in brown sugar, eating snack cakes dripping with artificial flavoring.

Everybody is thankful for something. I’m grateful for a husband who doesn’t mind Ho Ho’s for holiday lunch.

Taxing Times

“Why is our refund so. . .numerically deficient?” I paused without signing the tax returns and wrinkled my nose in an “Okay who made the stinky?” face so Bill Dear would appreciate the gravity of the situation and conjure a larger refund out of random bits of dust and dog hair.

“That’s all we get.” He said with a shrug and a blank look. He is not as proficient as I am in the art of conversation by facial expression. Now that I think of it, his blank look is the only conversational facial expression he has, excepting his “Everyone is going to die” face, which I can cause him to produce with astounding regularity.

“But last year we got twice as much.” Here I added my “This deficit is obviously the fault of some politician who owes me money. Otherwise it’s your fault in which case you’d better cough up some dough” face.

“We could only claim one son.”

“But I’ve got the stretch marks to prove two children and a small elephant.” I have a face for this, but it couldn’t possibly help the situation at this point.

“It doesn’t matter. We can only claim one son as a dependent.”

“I cook potatoes five nights a week. Anything that moves slowly through my kitchen gets grill marks. There is enough ice cream in our refrigerator to open our own Baskin Robbins outlet store. And there is a pallet of Fruity Pebbles sprouting groves of fruit trees with artificial flavors on the back porch. Don’t tell me they’re not dependent.”

“Son One has a job. He filed his own tax return.”

“Oh sure, I wait 20 years for him to do something by himself and he picks tax time. Why wasn’t he this prompt when he was potty training?”

“Because he didn’t get something nice direct deposited in his bank account for that.”

“He gave me a direct deposit, but I can’t say it was that nice.”

“Just be glad you didn’t get dividends.”

“No, but I got a surprise in his bathwater once.”

“That’s okay. If we kept good records over the year we can itemize and maybe we'll come out better.”

“Great.”

“Okay, where’s the box?”

“The box?”

“The box with all our receipts so we can see what we spent.”

“Oh, we didn’t have a box that was big enough.” I handed him a huge, black garbage bag, it’s contents bulging like it belonged to a pre-Christmas Eve Santa.

He peered inside. “There’s nothing in here but empty Girl Scout cookie boxes.”

“Right. You wanted to know where our money went.”

“It all went for Girl Scout cookies?”

“Yep, but I was smart.” I dug way down past flattened cardboard cartons, crinkly wrappers and cookie crumbs and pulled out one last perfect box full of Thin Mints.

“What’s that?”

“I’m way ahead of the government." I took a bite of cookie heaven. "This is our stimulus package.”

Bill Dear gave me a look. And it wasn’t his blank expression.

I think I'm gonna need a bigger box.