Stuffing the Turkey

Thanksgiving 2002 started out as any other day in our household back then, chaotic.

I had just cleaned the 35lb turkey and put it in a pan; I never stuff it because of the bacteria issue.

While I waited for the oven to get hot I went into the living room and sat down for a few minutes.

I saw my (then) husband (now ex) going into the kitchen and I told him "no nibbling on anything!"

About 15 minutes passed and all of a sudden I heard a terrible crash in the kitchen.

I got up and started for the kitchen and my husband came running into the dining room with the damn turkey on his head!!

After I was able to pick my mouth up from the floor I could see he was in distress because he was slamming into the walls and I could hear him screaming from inside the turkey, or..err...I had hoped it was my husband !!

Once my brain processed what I was seeing and I hate to admit this, but I started laughing. Big, lumberjack type laughs until I was screaming from the pain in my stomach!

Here he was running around the dining room, crashing into the walls and the turkey's legs were flopping up and down and the wings were flapping in the breeze.

I felt like I was in a Stephen King movie and expected Stephen to walk in any minute!

I finally was able to calm my husband down for a minute so I could try and get it off his head. I pulled; lifted, shifted it from side to side, put oil around the edges, then butter and nothing was budging it. At this point I was getting pretty worried because I knew he wasn't getting much air.

I also realized that his neck was swelling from all the pushing and pulling and from his panic and blood was trickling down.

At this point I knew I needed to get him to the emergency room so not thinking I got him into the car and headed down the road.

The hospital was fifteen miles down the road and for both of us it was the longest ride of our lives!

We had gone about 5 miles and I started hearing honking and yelling and people waving at me as we went by.

I look over at some of these cars and the people have their mouths open not believing what they are seeing or they are laughing so hard they are weaving in and out of traffic.

From their point of view it must have been a very surreal site to be sure! A woman driving with a man sitting in the passenger seat with a turkey stuck on his head!

I knew at that point I was going to have to do something fast or I would cause an accident.

I reached into the back seat and grabbed a blanket we keep in there for emergencies and if this wasn't an emergency I don't know what was.

I threw it over his head and we continued down the road.

Quite a few cars followed us and by the time I drove into the emergency room parking lot I had quite a crowd.

We all headed into the hospital...me, my husband, the turkey and the people that followed us on the highway.

Did you know that you don't have to sign papers and no questions are asked as to why you are there when you have a turkey on your head? Good to know.

They took my husband back right away and he is thrashing around and the turkey's legs and wings are flopping up and down and I am doing everything I can not to laugh again. We had enough people laughing.

The doctor came in right away, he did the same thing I did, pushed, pulled, shifted, lifted, sliced and diced and that turkey was not coming off.

Meanwhile my husband had to be given a sedative to quiet him down and the doctor was very concerned because he wasn't getting air, they couldn't even give him oxygen, what with the turkey sitting on his face and all!

There was also quite a commotion in the waiting area because all of my husband's "road fans" were there wanting to know how he was doing and they were getting quite noisy.

To make matters worse, employees from different floors had heard about the man with the turkey stuck on his head and they were coming down to see this most unusual site!

After awhile they had to call security and they told people "whoever didn't need to be in the ER, please go back to where you belong."

I kid you not, cameras were going off, people were picking their mouths up from the floor, and others were on the floor or holding their stomachs because they were laughing so hard.

It was a very chaotic scene and it looked like something out of a comedy series.

Meanwhile, back in the exam room, they had taken x-rays and the doctor tells me "yep, his got a turkey stuck on his head alright!" I replied "No............ya think!!! They pay you how much money to tell me that?"

We were talking about an orthopedic surgeon at this point. The doctor went on to say that they were going to take him up to the OR to remove the turkey. I could only think "what is wrong with that statement!"

The doctor was afraid that his air supply was being cut off. I wanted to fire back another "ya think" but I kept my mouth shut.

They wheeled him up to surgery and an hour later the turkey was off and my husband was going to be ok. He had cut marks all over his face where he was scraping along the bone in the turkey trying to get it off his head and what looked like hickey marks from sucking in to get air.

Once he woke up and was coherent, the doctor asked him "why would you do something so stupid?" My husband replied, "I saw it done on "Friends" and "Mr. Bean" so I thought I would try it to which the doctor replied "I have been a surgeon for over 30 years and I have seen many things that were strange, but never have I seen such a stupid stunt as this!"

Later, as we were leaving the doctor asked us "would you like to have the turkey back? It's not to late to cook him."