It’s the day after Thanksgiving. Time to clean up. For some, this is a bigger job than the average person is willing to tackle. The house won’t be put back together until just before Christmas.
We’re not overly concerned with the usual cranberry sauce on the drapes, pie filling on the ceiling, or a dog that won’t stop trying to pass a turkey bone. This is about the messes you don’t discover until much later.
I grew up hating turkey stuffing. Mom used anything that struck her fancy. Since she didn’t drink, wasn’t completely crazy, or deliberately trying to kill us (that I know of), I never understood her logic.
Oysters, mushrooms, sausage, anchovies, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, broccoli, capers and once even raisins, mixed with cornmeal or bread, and cooked in an odious lump.
Not all of these things were used at the same time, mind you. Just often enough to make a kid nervous when the Old Man started unloading the turkey’s “trunk.”
Yes, it was designated as “the trunk.” This, after I got a crack in the head one Thanksgiving when we had company and I referred to it as the turkey’s (a word my Grandfather Charlie used a lot).
Though what came out of that part of the turkey often made the word completely appropriate, I wasn’t supposed to say so, especially around guests.
Never mind. Stuffing was a literal crapshoot. Once in a great while it was palatable. But to a 10-year-old, it was more often a culinary crime.
Didn’t matter. We had to eat it anyway, and any expression of “Eew” or “Yuck” meant a double helping. Worse, being children of a Great Depression couple, our plates were expected to sparkle before we left the table.
The Old Man once made me eat carrots that I had surreptitiously dropped on the floor under the table. When our dog failed to eat them, I had to pick them up, put them back on my plate, and finish them off.
Given this experience, I was never really sure if my father might insist on vomit being recycled, so I elected to never pretend that something made me sick.
I eventually got better at disposing of things my throat absolutely refused to cooperate in swallowing.
First, there was “Can I be excused to go to the bathroom?” This worked well until a wad of green beans clogged the can. That was the Thanksgiving I came really close to going swimming.
Feeding the dog under the table was handy as long as I didn’t give him anything that required chewing. That sound was a dead giveaway.
I tried hiding unwanted food in my pockets. It’s amazing how much you can cram into both front pockets. But since I couldn’t flush them anymore, I had to get creative.
Even that proved dangerous. Never hide cooked squash in the toes of your father’s church shoes. Doesn’t matter if it’s Sunday morning. He’ll still chase you onto the roof of the house and beat your, um, trunk.
All of this made me better at catching my own kids hiding food in spots like the fireplace, laundry hampers and dollhouses. It’s astonishing how much garlic mashed potatoes will fit in a plastic baby’s head.
Still, this Thanksgiving was excellent. We had food. We had shelter. We had one another. Nothing went to waste.
Robert Kirby is The Salt Lake Tribune’s humor columnist. Follow Kirby on Facebook.
