Saturday, November 25, 2006

• Floor Turkey and the White Tornado

  Thanksgiving has always been a rather hectic holiday in my household, as it is in many others.  Knowing that it is often stressful and chaotic for other folks does not seem to make be feel any better about my own stress.  To be honest, I shouldn't feel any stress at all; I am not doing the cooking.  And therein lies the angst, and the first part of my Thanksgiving saga:

  "Mavis and the Floor Turkey"

  It can be said, and I have said it many times, that in Mavis' house, one could eat off the floor. She is the queen of of clean, the dutchess of the dustpan. She lives to clean. So when she called me early on Thanksgiving morning the tremor in her voice alerted me, even before she told me, that something messy had happened.  "You won't believe what just happened!" she said, in a hushed and near-hysterical whisper. "I'm lucky to be alive!"

  "Oh my goodness, what happened?" I asked, now ashamed of my first assumption of a breach of clean crime occurring in her house.

  "I had an accident!"

  "Oh no! Are you ok? Did you get hurt?"

  Pause.

  "Mom? Are you ok??"

  Pause.

  "I can't believe what I did. Your father is going to kill me when he gets back from the store. I sent him there because I was low on paper towels and needed Windex, and pot scrubbers. I'll have a lot of dishes to take care of, and you know the glass on the dining room table will need to be windexed after we eat. If I wait all the finger prints will just stay--"

  "MOM!" I knew the pattern. She would prattle for ten minutes if I let her go unchecked. For all I know she was bleeding or something. "Are you ok? What accident!"

  "Oh. . . that." Another pause then her voice lowered. "I dropped the turkey."

  "What?"

  "I was checking it, and basting, and I knew I should have bought a smaller bird, this one is so heavy, and in the cast iron roaster, well it was just a bit too much for me to lift, your father told me to wait for him but you know if you don't baste it gets dry and there is nothing worst than dry turkey. You remember how bad the turkey at your aunt--"

  "MOM!"

  "What?"

  "You dropped the turkey?"

  "On the floor! It took me a half an hour to clean the grease and the splatters went all the way to the fridge! What a mess!"

  "What did you do with the turkey??"

  "What do you think I did! I put it back in the roaster. It wasn't done."

  My turn to pause.  She put it back in the roaster. Ok, well now think about this for a minute.  If it was any other house, my immediate thought would be "today I'm a vegetarian".  Hell if it was in my own house, I would be a vegetarian! But this was Mavis and her kitchen floor was cleaner than the dishes on many a dining room table. I could live with her putting it back in the pot. 

  "So . . . dad doesn't know?"

  "No. If I tell him, he won't eat! Everything is cleaned up, and he'll never know the difference. . .  ok, so the legs are busted and the wings fell off, and the wishbone fell out, but other than that, it looks like any other bird I've ever cooked."

  At that point, hard as I fought it, I could not. At the risk of being dropped from the will, I burst out laughing. "You dropped the turkey??"

  "You think it's funny?"

  "YOU DROPPED THE TURKEY??"

  "I picked it up! What's so funny?"

  I couldn't help it.  I was out of breath, laughing hysterically, tears blurring my vision. That's when my husband came into the room. He thought I was hysterical, and crying, and upset. "What is it?"

  I tried to catch my breath to answer, but could only hold my gut, and sink down against the wall, my face now soaked. He started to panic, which only added to my fit of laughter, that he still took as hysterics. He grabbed my shoulders and shook, "WHat happened! Did someone die??"

  "YES!"  I gasped then started to laugh. "THE TURKEY!"

  I relayed what I could to my husband between gasps. He shook his head and left the room, knowing better than to even try to ask any more. "I'll be getting dressed. What time does your mom want us?"

  I composed myself. "What time do you want us?"

  "Oh, don't come before 1:30.  And then we can eat about 2:00" She told me.

  "Ok, 1:30 it is. See you then."  I hung up, and had another fit of laughter as I told my husband and sons what had happened. My youngest son said he was going without turkey that day, but my older son spoke up and remind him, "I'll eat yours then. That floor's cleaner than mom's."  I'm ashamed to admit he's right.

  So we went about getting ready. There was showering to be done, and my youngest, home from college for Thanksgiving, needed to wash and dry his dress pants before we left. I figured we had more than enough time, since it was only 11:00 and it is only a 15 minute drive to Mavis' house.

  I should have known better. The stress level was already rising when the pants needed a second round through the dryer, and my own shower had to be delayed because of the washing machine. At 11:20 I was just stepping out of the shower, my son was running around with a towel around his waste for lack of pants and my husband was fretting about the lack of hot water, when the phone rang. It was mom.

  "Can you come now?"

  "Now??"

  "The popper in the turkey just popped. It's done. We have to eat sooner. Come now."

  "Mom, it's 2 hours early and I'm naked!"

  "Get dressed then, and come. Dinner is ready." She hung up.

  I told my husband and sons, that we had to hustle. Younger son threw his hands up, "but my pants are still wet!"  Husband growled, "I need a shower, and was waitin for hot water!" 

  "I know I know!" I grumbled, rushing to the bedroom to dry my hair. "But you know mom! She'll make life miserable if we don't hurry."

  With younger son squeezed into a pair of his father's pants, my older son with his hair still wet from the 3 minute shower we allowed him to have, my husband half shaved, and myself without makeup,  we climbed into the car and headed off to Mavis' house.   

  When we got there, she greeted us with a smile. "Oh you're early! Good, come in and visit"

  "Early? You called and said dinner was ready!"

  "I thought the popper thing popped but it didn't. . .  take off your shoes, didn't you wear a hat? Young man your hair is wet, you'll catch pneumonia, you look pale, dear, aren't you feeling well? "

  No sense even trying to explain or argue. I hustled the boys into the living room to watch TV while I did my best to keep Mavis from unraveling.  The kitchen was full of cooking, and not a mess to be found. The turkey was fine in the roaster, if not a bit mangled looking. It had only been the bottom that hit the floor, and that had been shaved off and tossed.  "See? no one needs to know."

  "I called everyone and told them"

  "What? Why?"

  "Because I didn't want them to think I'd feed them a turkey I dropped on the floor!"

  "But. . .if you didn't tell them, how would they know?"

  "Exactly."

  I gave up. It was a typical Mavis moment.

  My niece, her husband and three kids arrived, equally early, what a coincidence.

  The table was set with the good dishes, and thick paper napkins. Mavis explained that she had bought some nice linen napkins recently, but didn't see the point in using them for such a big dinner. "Yeah, ok, mom, it's not like it's Thanksgiving or anything special. . . :"   That earned me a glare. It made my father laugh though.

  By 12:15 we were sitting down to eat. She sat down last, of course, having made sure everyone else had their plates full.  She also finished first, and stood up, taking her plate to the sink. It was our signal to hold on to our plates for dear life, lest it be cleaned away between bites.  It didn't work, and after a few moments we all gave up the fight, and the table was soon cleared. She moved like a woman possessed, wiping, scraping, washing. . . and by 1:00 there was no evidence that a meal had ever been prepared, or consumed in her house.  When she opened the dishwasher the plates were still steaming hot, barely done with the dry cycle. She reached for her drying cloth with one hand and a hot plate with the other, and that's when I lost it. I slapped her hand, and slammed the dishwasher door closed and said, in a far louder voice than I've used for years, "The dishes are NOT GOING ANYWHERE!" 

  She looked at me, stricken. "But I want to be done with them."

  "They'll be fine! Can you please stop, and sit down!"

  That's when she put on her  look of perpetual mortification. I gave up, and only watched as she picked up the windex and her paper towels and proceeded to clean the place. "You don't clean like this, do you," she asked me, in that superior way she has that makes questions come out like accusations. "I don't know where I went wrong in that. Neither you or your sister seemed to inherit the white tornado gene." She said it like a joke, but it stung.

  My younger son came to my rescue. "Sure she did! You may be the white tornado, but mom's the golden dust storm!"   I'm not sure that made me feel any better, but it was pretty funny. And true.

  My niece begged a headache, and the baby needed her nap. . .  so she couldn't stay.  Thus deserted, it was just me and mine, and try as I may to visit there was no use in trying.  The boys got restless, my husband grew impatient. My dad shook his head and rolled his eyes, and sympathized. He gave me a hug and told me to drive carefully.  "You know your mother, she's never happy unless she's cleaning. I swear she could clean a crime scene if she put her mind to it."  

  "Dad . . . did you know. . ." I began, wondering if I had the nerve to tell him about the turkey.

  "Know what?"

  I hesitated, watching mom now wrangling her floor polisher out of the closet. "Nothing. You're right, she could."

  "Yeah, you'd never know the turkey hit the floor," my older son blurted out, matter of factly.

  The look on my father's face was something I will never forget. A mix of disbelief and dismay. Was he hurt, that she'd pulled one over on him? Fed him dropped turkey without telling him? He had every right to feel betrayed.  But he said, "Why the hell did she tell you? I told her no one would know."

  That's when I laughed again, gave him a hug, and we were out the door.

  I laughed until I got to the end of the street. Then I cried the rest of the way home.  Thus ended another Thanksgiving at Mavis'. Thanksgiving was over, for the day. There was still my husband's annual get together on Saturday to get through. But that's tomorrow's blog.

   

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