Some MEN are like TURKEYS!

I’m sitting here making a Christmas Eve turkey for my friends and family this year, without a man to sit at the head of the table, I’ll be doing that, thank you, thinking to myself, “”Making a turkey is so much work. You have to brine the thing in ice water and sugar, vinegar, apple cider and spices over night and employ every trick you can possibly know to make certain the turkey comes out moist and delicious and even then, there is no guarantee. Other meats are so much easier!”

I’ve drenched and soaked my turkey in duck fat, beef broth, squeezed the juice of several oranges all over the inside and outside of it, hoping it won’t turn out dry. I’ve washed it, rubbed it with herbs, seasonings, salt, pepper and paprika and I’m basting the spoiled rotten little thing every twenty minutes! I’ve put white wine, carrots, celery, onions and a secret jalapeno in the bottom of the pan…

Then I started thinking of a man I’ve cooked many turkeys for. This one man in particular made me see how some men are like turkeys. Only instead of being dry, they are loveless.

No matter how hard I tried, no matter how much love, attention, effort and support I gave him, he remained dry, like a turkey. It’s a hard thing to accept, little problem solver that I am, that nothing could warm this man’s heart. This particular man, ended up being a malignant narcissist with anti-social traits, which is basically 3/4 the way to psychopath. I realize not all men are like this, but there are those “odd birds” out there who don’t seem to enjoy family, holidays, intimacy, love and who do not, no matter how awesome a woman may be, appreciate a woman’s worth…

Which got me wondering why I bothered with that particular man so long, trying to get blood from a turnip, as they say…

Perhaps, I like a challenge or I am hopelessly addicted to hope or maybe I didn’t know what I was dealing with at the time. Perhaps, it never occurred to me that he was not like me, that the he was missing certain elements of humanity that I had previously taken for granted… Perhaps it never occurred to me that he was just dry like a turkey.

You could drench him in gravy, smother him in cranberry sauce, smash him in with the mashed potatoes and creamed corn, but he would still be a turkey after all of that.

But as I was wondering why I bothered with this man for over a decade, I got to wondering (You see how long it takes to prepare a turkey, lots of wondering can be done!) why our forefathers and foremothers chose turkey to eat on winter holidays, when there are so many other kinds of meats, such as chicken, fish and beef that are juicy and much less work to make tasty and delicious. As I stuffed the turkey full of stuffing, I really began to see a similarity between men (some of them) and turkeys.

Some men are like turkeys, dry. I suppose certain women out there are too. Maybe our forefathers and foremothers didn’t have a choice about what they ate when they first came to America. Maybe turkey was all there was to eat –Dating in Los Angeles makes me empathize with their plight. Maybe after that, it just became a tradition to eat turkey… What ever the reason, I’m thinking to cook roast beef next year!