A Thanksgiving Turkey Story

Happy Thanksgiving, dear My Left Breast readers!

I thought I’d share a quick, funny Thanksgiving story from my early marriage to get the merriment going.

One of the first years we were married, we were hosting Thanksgiving at our place for friends and family.  It wasn’t the first time I’d ever made a turkey, so I was feeling pretty comfortable about it and had things pretty well organized.  The turkey was safely defrosting in the refrigerator, the potatoes were ready to be peeled, the green beans were prepped, the rest of the sides were all ready and the pies had been made.

All that had to be done was getting the bird cleaned, dressed and into the oven the next morning.  (Hint:  Operative word = cleaned.)

At that time, we were constantly in the midst of fixing things in our home; it was a fixer upper, and there were always lots of projects on the to-do list.  One of those projects was to fix the kitchen sink; a pipe underneath was leaking a little, and needed to be replaced.  It wasn’t urgent, but just one of those things on the back burner that we were planning on doing.

Well, this year, the night before Thanksgiving, my husband decided to fix the plumbing under the kitchen sink.

At about 6:00 p.m.

And mind you, my husband isn’t a plumber or anything.  He’s a finance executive, working at a desk all day.  He knows a bit about plumbing, but it’s not his area of expertise by a long shot.

And of course, at around 9:00 p.m., after wrangling around under the sink for a few hours, he realized he needed a new part as the one he had bought earlier that day didn’t quite fit.

And, by the time he got to the hardware store for the new part, it was closed (it was the night before Thanksgiving, after all, and the workers wanted to get home to get ready for the next day).

So.

It was the night before Thanksgiving, and I no longer had a working sink in my kitchen.

Which meant, I had nowhere to clean the freakin’ 20 pound turkey!

Let me tell you, turkeys are cumbersome creatures and do not fit into a bathroom sink (believe me, I tried each sink in each of the 3 bathrooms).

Needless to say, hubby and I had a few choice words for each other that night, and it was pretty nip and tuck there for a while as to whether or not we were going to be able to give any thanks the next day.

But I finally lugged the 20 lb. carcass up the stairs and into the bathroom and cleaned that sucker in the shower.  It was pretty slippery and a little gross, but I got it cleaned and dried and dressed and managed to get it into the oven in time to have a beautiful turkey dinner for the whole family the next day.

And by the time the guests got there the sink was all fixed.  Which was a good thing, because I had to get all the other things ready and washed and if we didn’t have a sink it would have been a bit of a fiasco.

So, here’s to giving thanks for indoor plumbing and working kitchen sinks!

Enjoy the time with friends and family!