A Universal Truth

My oldest son has a very difficult time with transitions. He hates new routines and will usually fight them since he has a lot of anxiety over them. We have had him assessed and he has seen a developmental paediatrician and it basically comes down to the fact that he has a "slow to warm up" personality and he is of "superior intelligence" (as they refer to it), or as the rest of the world would say, "he's really smart."

Anyway, the new school year was causing him a little anxiety and although we have been warning him for the last three weeks that school will be starting, he was starting to get a little worked up about all the changes. Instead of complicating the matter even more, I decided I would resort to bribery and I told him he could have any meal he wanted as a special treat if he had a great first week of school.

He jumped at the chance and said he wanted me to cook a turkey. A turkey! Not, let's go to McDonald's, nope not my kid, he wants a turkey dinner. I agreed and that is why you find me today, cooking a turkey.

As I was preparing the turkey, I realized that there is a universal truth about cooking turkeys and I wanted to share it with you.

So are you ready...drum roll please....

The Universal Truth of Cooking a Turkey...

"No matter what you do, the moment you stick your hands up a turkey's butt, you will have an excruciating itch somewhere on your face."

Oh, you try to ignore it, that little itch just above the eyebrow or the little twinge on the nose, your hands are, after all, covered in turkey fat and other nastiness found on the inside of a turkey, but the little itch grows and you find that it is so annoying you just have to scratch it, even if it is just with the inside of your bicep.

This does nothing for the itch but it leaves you looking like you are rehearsing for the world's worst adaptation of the chicken dance. One foot raised up on tiptoes, your head slumped down, your arm up and covering your face as a turkey wobbles to and fro on your hands. It is just pathetic, but you don't want to take your hands out of the turkey, wash them off, scratch the itch and the moment you stick them back in a new itch begins.

So you tough it out, slightly dancing in impatience, knowing that if you don't scratch that spot soon, you are going to start crying. Then, when you are finally done, your hands are extracted from the turkey's butt (okay, it's not really the butt but it's pretty close) and you have washed away the turkey grime completely... the itch is gone (that is until you start stuffing the turkey).

And what is the moral of my universal truth...

...Probably that you should never stick your hands up a turkey's butt...

Sirena