Turkey coma

Thanksgiving is not my favorite holiday. To
me, it seems hypocritical, feasting on what Benjamin Franklin once proposed
as the national bird. I don’t
think that’s quite what he really had in mind. And not to be too PC about
it, but a carnivorous celebration of
genocide? Puhleeze!
In short, a perfect Hallmark occasion.

And what, I wonder, does the choice of national bird say about our
national character? When you think about it, Ben Franklin’s praise for
turkeys could be prophetic for America itself: “I wish the Bald Eagle had
not been chosen as the representative of our country. He is a Bird of bad
moral character; like those among Men who live by Sharping and Robbing. He
is generally poor and often very lousy. The Turkey is a much more
respectable Bird and withal a true original Native of North America.”

I’d forgotten turkeys come in
distinctive male and female models, just like some people I know, those
intriguing couples where the man is very good-looking and the woman is
simply plain and adoring. The tom turkey is a large, stately bird with
greenish bronze feathers and a handsome fantail, while the hen turkey is
smaller, with drab feathers. Turkey talk
is much more complex than you might imagine: excited turkeys
gobble; otherwise they yelp to communicate, and when they’re
relaxed and content, they even purr. Wild turkeys, unlike the rough
whiskey of that name, are gentle creatures, feeding on insects, seeds,
berries and tender plants.

The factory-farmed turkey version,
however, may be fattened on steroids, hormones, antibiotics, cellulose
fiber, miscellaneous chemicals, perhaps even powdered cement-laced feed.
When you think about it, by now, the USA’s mass raising and slaughter of
turkeys for our delectation must rival or exceed that of any other
disempowered slave minority in sheer numbers.
Vegetarianism, anyone?

Most Thanksgivings I go for dinner at the home of friends around the
corner, let’s call them the Arcadias, an affluent, politically connected
Boomer couple, generous hosts who can be counted on to provide enough
entertainment they don’t even need a TV in their living room. “Leave your
dog home,” they have stated pointedly in their dinner invitations to me.
Arnie Arcadia, it should be mentioned, is such an omnivore he consumed
moo-shu pup in a 12-course Chinese banquet entertaining corporate clients in
Hangchow.

Last time, I walked in on a crisis. In the midst of Anne Arcadia’s
frenzied Thanksgiving dinner preparations for 23 — actually the only time
she cooks all year — their kitchen drain clogs. Anyway, apparently the
Arcadias have such clout, 20 minutes into Anne’s panic, they manage to get a
living breathing plumber to show up, plunger in hand. On Thanksgiving Day?
Now THAT’s my definition of power.

Commenting like a desultory Greek chorus, those of us assembled speculate
that all over America, everyone must be dying to leave THEIR Thanksgiving
festivities, citing known cases of harried housewives going out for a quart
of milk on Thanksgiving and not returning for six months until all traces of
turkey leftovers have been obliterated. Turkey
Divan, anyone?

I guess they call it that because after you eat turkey, you need a divan.
I want to say this Turkey Coma thing DOES EXIST, though I never before heard
of it until that day. Yes, I succumbed to the dread Turkey Coma myself.
Fortunately it first happened to me chez Arcadia — with their large double
black leather couches for all the guests who fall into turkey trances, it
WAS Arcadian. They are rather hedonistic, such that Anne and Arnie — having
just gone to Paris for still yet another of what they call a “trashy
weekend” — spent the time in their hotel, in bed, consuming large
quantities of McDonalds and Croques Monsieurs while making love. What a
pair! My heroes!

Anyway, we all deduced that watching the Big Game after a turkey dinner
performs a useful social function of putting one’s L-Tryptophan
stupor
to good use. They are so avant-garde, these people, they even had a toy
rat in a trap that wiggled and squirmed when you turned on the switch. Ahhh,
all the comforts of home…

One of the other dinner guests, an erudite, attractive art historian
named Davenport who prefers books to computers and men to women, knows of my
very slight technological bent and corners me about online life. For some
reason, he is particularly interested in what I call “moot courting,” or,
“virtual romance,” which just coincidentally happens to be the topic of my
novel currently seeking a publisher. “I think it’s funny when people on the
Net spit out their height, weight, hair color, measurements, age, and so
on,” I tell him.

“Funny? Why so?” he asks.

“What a fantasy world,” I say.

“Oh, I see. Female, age 43, is not funny,” he observes.

“It’s like Cinderella in her own little corner, where she can be whatever
she wants to be,” I go on.

“So you could say you’re a 99-year-old, 1,000-pound millionaire,” he
says.

“Yes. And then maybe female, 43, is really male, 18. Who knows?” I say.

“They like the pretense, the mystery,” he says.

“Right. Everyone is 23-years-old, 5’6″, 115 pounds, blonde, blue,
36-24-36, built like a brick out-house. With a ‘rack,’ they call it. And
all the men are incredibly handsome, tall, buffed, impossibly endowed, and
don’t need Viagra to last all night,” I say in an obviously brunette moment.
“Or, if they are over 50, they brag they have an unlimited Viagra supply
though totally indifferent to the possibility of horrid side-effects. I once
bumped into a guy whose screen name was ‘VIAGRA DRIVE.’ I shudder to think
of his engine knock.”

“Screen name?” he asks.

“Think CB handle,” I explain, “An online alias. I call them
‘scream-names.’ Because sometimes they are. A scream, I mean. Like a
southern chef friend of mine whose screen name, Satay1 — randomly composed
of elements of his first, middle, and last names — actually means a hot,
spicy sauce in several foreign cuisines.”

“Isn’t it fun?” Davenport asks.

“Of course,” I say. “And aren’t they all knockouts online? Isn’t that
THE point?”

“My point exactly,” he replies.

“And I’m Marie of Rumania,” I giggle.

“Funny, I’m the king of Rumania! Or, Cindy Crawford’s twin,” he says.

“Would that be fraternal?” I shrug.

“Sure. But wait! I’m the nanny for the Absent-Minded Professor,” he says.

“Hey! Didn’t the Absent-Minded Professor marry his son’s nanny?” I ask.

“I guess I’d just rather do my flirting in person. And,” he says,
“talking about your comatose turkeys, once live video becomes a standard
computer accessory, all this verbal prestidigitation will be moot.”

Comatose turkeys, indeed. Later that same evening, “Hume,” one of those
alluring but anonymous Internet “friends” of that moment, e-mails me an
apology for missing our planned midnight ‘chat’ in Cyberspace — though
clobbered by Turkey Coma, I fell fast asleep myself. “Was tied up with
Thanksgiving rituals. And here I am, late*,” he messaged me — the asterisk
cyber-speak for “kiss.” “Sounds intriguing,” I write him back, “Um, tied
up? What would those ‘rituals’ be? Flossing? Turkey bondage? Trussing
drumsticks? Barbecuing Pilgrims on a lemon-tinged procrustean bed of
mesquite? Garroting geese? Forcing Foie Gras?” That — I muse — might be
fun for some folks, though surely no one I know.

Meanwhile, I’m in awe of nature, how wonderfully symmetrical things
sometimes seem, when it comes to a subtle kind of revenge — we cook
turkeys, they put us into a stupor. It’s only fair.