Clare's Turkey

Happy Thanksgiving

Clare's Turkey

This is my most memorable Thanksgiving story.

I need to tell you that I had one of the original, full-sized Radar Range microwave ovens years before any of my friends. This had to do with a manic consumer spending contest my ex-husband Gruesome had for years with a guy named Chuck, to see who could buy the most newest and most expensive consumer goods first. And one of these purchases was the very second Radar-Range in our county, in my kitchen.

So Thanksgiving Day 1979, my pal Clare rang my doorbell, at six in the morning. She was exactly nine months pregnant, crying and holding a huge, solidly frozen turkey. She sobbed out, "Will this fit in your microwave?"

She was pregnant in the rotund way that only a five-foot-two-inch woman can be. From her chin to her knees. And she would not stop crying. I unwrapped the turkey, pryed out the gizzard packs with a steak knife, and set the microwave to "99 minutes," the maximum.

"I just forgot," she told me. "I was so tired yesterday, and I laid down on the bed for just ten minutes. And I slept all night instead." She put her head in her hands. "My mother-in-law is gonna kill me."

I made her cup after cup of chamomile tea, told her funny stories, put the oven on another 99 minutes. We were getting nowhere fast with that bird. "Just have Scott call his mother and explain. Tell her that you'll pickup a nice big canned ham.

""No-o-o-o! The last thing Ardele told me last Sunday was that the newest daughter-in-law always does the turkey. No matter what."

"But she can't expect you to do a great big ol' turkey on your due date. You could be at the hospital right now, giving birth."

She shot me one of those "you poor ignorant fool" looks that Oklahomans do so well. "You don't know Ardele."

In the end we call next door to my wonderful neighbor Suzanne. She traded
out turkeys with us. Because she had a thawed one the same size as Clare's and didn't need it till the next day. Then we got out my sleek "Litton's Guide to Microwave Cookery" cookbook, slathered the thawed turkey in an entire bottle of Kitchen Bouquet browning agent, and nuked that baby. Then Clare called her husband Scott, who was already at Ardele's house, and told him that she was on her way to Cooked Turkey.

And two hours later, Clare, in her very best and largest maternity top, carried that turkey in through her MIL Ardele's kitchen door. "What's that?"Ardele asked her.

"Your turkey."

"No." Ardele opened her two oven doors. "These are my turkeys. I was only kidding, Clare. Nobody expects you to cook this year."

Clare went out and opened Ardele's car door, dumped the turkey upside-down on the front seat, took her husband Scott's VW camper bus, and drove herself to the hospital, and had a baby boy named Nathan.

So, you see, she trumped Ardele after all. An eight pound baby boy beats a practical joke any day. And I found out that you CAN cook a whole turkey in the microwave oven. And Ardele discovered that a pregnant woman is nothing to trifle with.

Janelle