Turkey has a name, hide sharp instruments

Thanksgiving often brings out the monster in all of us.

We all have one. We have that little demon inside of us that thinks how cool it would be just to, just once, be able to hack something up for the fun of it, and then have people thank you for it in the end.

I think that’s what turkey carving is all about.

You have to liken turkey carving to one of the dozens of serial killers you’ve read about, or watched movies about.

It seems that most ritualistic serial killers have some body part, or numerous body parts, that appeal to them more than any other.

Turkey carving, however, gives you the opportunity to put all those morbid thoughts into one sustained action that is both socially acceptable and therapeutic.

For instance. If you take the electric carving knife and slice through bone just above the turkey leg, you can gleefully remember that kid on the playground that was just fast enough to stay out of your reach after a good snowball mush job to the side of your face. Try as you might, you just couldn’t quite catch him. He was always a step out of your reach.

But let him try that now with one leg.

Pass off the turkey leg and wish the recipient bon appetite. Don’t explain the smile.

And then there was the class bully. While they may never have picked on you, they did pick on lots of other folks. And every time you had to witness the event, because bullies like a crowd and crowds have a morbid fascination with bullies, you could see in the victim’s eyes that innate desire to stick a sharp object through his tormentor’s chest.

So you take the newly sharpened carving knife from the drawer and stab that ol’ turkey right in the breast plate. You slice off a big slab of white meat.

Pass off the slab of breast meat and wish the recipient bon appetite. Don’t explain the smile.

As you pick the turkey up to transfer it from the cooking pan onto the carving plate, you can be reminded of that first smart-aleck boss. He was the one that was barely older than you, but happened to have seniority and always seemed to take joy in berating all the junior employees in front of customers.

So of course, with that memory as fuel, you shove the short-handled fork into the neck of the recently cooked bird, and you shove the long-handled fork into the posterior region of the recently cooked bird.

One gives you much more satisfaction than the other. You pass the roasted bird to the plate and wish the recipients bon appetite. You don’t explain the smile.

A friend of mine could carve a turkey in about three minutes. He said his motivation was a nasty ex-wife that took his house, his car and his dog and left him with the bills for all three.

He was meticulous about carving that bird. First, he would stab it in the heart. Then he would cut a large slice down the middle of the breast and shave off little strips in a very deliberate fashion.

He would do the same to the other side before moving on to the legs.

He was a purist, so he didn’t use electric knives. He preferred the sharply honed edge of solid steel.

He cut a slice in the leg joint and then gleefully ripped the bone from the thigh, did the same to the other leg and flopped the bird over.

He would cut precise slabs from the back of the bird exposing the ribs. He would peel all the skin off the roaster and lay it aside in a big pile.

Once he had neatly and precisely carved the bird into little more than a bony wasteland on a serving tray he would break out in a huge smile and jam the knife right into the posterior of that old turkey. We could almost hear it scream from the grave.

But he wasn’t done. He wasn’t one to wait for the wishbone to dry and then crack it in the old game of one-upsmanship.

Instead, he gripped the sides of the wishbone securely in both hands and slowly pulled the bone apart.

His work finished, he would get a plate, grab some turkey and pop it into his mouth.

He always enjoyed the bird.

And we always wondered where he got the practice for that exhibition.

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