I finally finished, last night, the last of the Thanksgiving pies. It took me a full week, and, believe me, I took no pleasure in it.

In fact, every bite made me mad. It didn’t stop me, but it made me mad.

See, every night — after the pie — I’d say to myself, “Okay, pinhead, that’s enough. You’ve had enough pie. Throw them all out, and be done with it, and start losing that seventeen pounds you’ve been working on since the Tet Offensive.” (I was fourteen during the Tet Offensive, and didn’t need to lose seventeen pounds, but that joke felt right, and I couldn’t think of anything from 1978-90 that could beat it. Hold it, wait. No. I’m blank. Let’s move on.)

But I didn’t throw the pies out the next day. I just didn’t get around to it. And the next night, while the kids were doing their twelve hours of useless homework in the kitchen, I would sneak one of the plates out of the ‘fridge and tip-toe into our bedroom. (If I ever made up a list of things I think I do really well, sneaking and tip-toeing would not be on it.)

We had nine people and four pies this year, all home-made. The pies, not the people. Although, come to think of it, at one point or another, we were all home-made. Heh-heh.

My wife did her famous pumpkin pies, two of them, which were very, very, very good, but my sister-in-law brought an apple that was kind of great, and a pecan that was shattering. Also, my brother-in-law brought a good bottle of whiskey. (That has nothing to do with anything; I’m just saying, he brought a good bottle of whiskey. I always liked him, or at least I do now.)

In the last seven days, I finished the pecan, hit the apple one or twice with one of the kids, made polite (and visible) swipes at the pumpkins (complete with winks); but it was the pecan that was the thing. That one I finished.

Plus I hit the giant plastic tub of leftover Cool Whip here and there, if only to remind myself how terrible it is.

Look, God bless everyone at Cool Whip, and I hope they sell a million a year, but, let’s face it, that stuff is just slightly less satisfying than trying to learn anything from the news. We all get it every year, and I wouldn’t know how to have Thanksgiving without it, but cotton candy is more substantial than Cool Whip. It’s the flash-paper of foods. I don’t know what Cool Whip is made of, but I’ll bet it’s essentially the same stuff that killed that Russian guy last week.

Which brings me to the point of this article: What in God’s name is fried turkey?

Now I eat all sorts of fried food, and it may not be the healthiest way to cook things, but if you don’t do it every day, fried foods are very tasty. Eggs, chicken, potatoes, peppers, garlic, uh… Well, I’m not a chef, but you know the fried things you like. The point is, I’m not a frying virgin.

But the thought of fried turkey, the image of what that must take to do, even the words “fried” and “turkey” together make me cringe. Eww. Yuch. Blurg.

Maybe it’s the size of the thing, its totality. I like steak, but the thought of frying a cow is horrifying. It’s too big, too intentional. Give it a beat, you know? One extra step. Cut it down to size. It’s one thing for the cow to see a bored guy in a gore-covered butcher’s coat, but a vat big enough to fry it? I don’t know, maybe I’m nuts, but it’s just weird.

Fried turkey. Ooh, man, no, thanks. Too big. How much oil would that take? Oooolph.

Let’s end on a better note and hearken back to a week of too much leftover desert.

After all, as the radius said to the circumference — Come on, you’re all with me on this one, aren’t you? — That’s right, I said, as the radius said to the circumference…

“Hey, everyone likes pi.”

Lord help me, I can’t resist a pun. Even a thousand words isn’t too far to go.

LARRY MILLER 12/1

This entry was posted on Friday, December 1st, 2006 at 1:28 pm and is filed under Larry Miller Humor. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.