Joke 609

Thanks to Siggi for sending this just after Thanksgiving last year – and Happy Thanksgiving to all of my American readers!

Oven roasted turkey, common fare for Christmas and Thanksgiving celebrations. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Bet you didn’t think I’d save your joke for a whole year, did you, Siggi?

I am thankful for…

all of my readers.  

What are you thankful for?

Siggi says that a large producer of turkeys in the States is Butterball.  They have a phone centre people can call for help with cooking their turkeys.  

I actually knew that, thanks to an episode of The West Wing in which it features.

*

The following are some of the funny calls they’ve had over the years.*

• After discovering a turkey from 1969 in his dad’s freezer, an Alabama man called the Talk-Line to ask about the best way to cook the 30+ year-old bird. Although the Talk-Line staffer recommended the open roasting pan method to cook most turkeys, this time she suggested that the first step was to purchase a fresher fowl.  This same gentleman also had in his freezer the top of his wedding cake and a snowball from every snowstorm he’d experienced in Alabama.
• A woman in her seventies, cooking Thanksgiving dinner for the first time, called for help because her mother said she was tired of cooking and it was time her daughter learned how to prepare the Thanksgiving meal.
• A proud gentleman called to tell the staff how he wrapped his turkey in a towel and stomped on it several times, breaking the bones so it would fit in his pan.
• Another gentleman called to tell the operator he cut his turkey in half with a chain saw and wanted to know if the oil from the chain would adversely affect the turkey.
• A disappointed woman called wondering why her turkey had no breast meat. After a conversation with a Talk-Line operator, it became apparent that the woman’s turkey was lying on the table upside down.
• A new bride cooking Thanksgiving dinner for the first time in a small, apartment-sized oven, wanted to make sure her turkey wouldn’t expand during cooking (as baked goods do), and thus get stuck in the oven.
  

  English: Saying grace before carving the turkey at Thanksgiving dinner in the home of Earle Landis in Neffsville, Pennsylvania (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

• A lady from Colorado called about “how to thaw” her frozen Butterball. She proudly shared the fact that her turkey was stored in a snow bank outside.  It had snowed the night before and it then dawned on her that she didn’t have a clue which snow bank her turkey was in. At that point, the conversation was really over because she was now on a mission to go find her turkey.
• One caller had always cut the legs off the turkey before putting it in the oven thinking that was how you had to cook a turkey. She later learned that the only reason her mom had been doing that was because their oven had been so small that that was the only way to get the bird into the oven.
• A first-time Thanksgiving chef called the Talk-Line one Thanksgiving morning. She was proud to have thawed the turkey successfully and continued to rinse the turkey – with dish soap.  The turkey wouldn’t stop sudsing.
• One mom called in and told how her little girl had asked if they could slow-roast the turkey for three or four days because she liked how it made the house smell. 
• One caller was well versed at walking down the aisle, but not so versed when it came to cooking her Thanksgiving turkey. The caller explained to Carol Miller, a 20-plus year Talk-Line veteran, Thanksgiving with her first husband was a bust since she forgot to thaw the turkey. She blundered Thanksgiving with her second husband when the foil pan she was using bent and slipped out of her hands leaving the feast on the floor. She was hoping the third time would be the charm so she called the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line to make sure she was doing everything right.
  

  US Navy 061123-N-4965F-001 Capt. Taylor Skardon serves Thanksgiving dinner to patrons of the Silver Dolphin Bistro galley on board Naval Station Pearl Harbor (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

• Some holiday chefs take extreme measures to please all guests. A caller was e-mailed a photo featuring a turkey with a “bikini look.” As she was entertaining guests from the Bahamas, she asked the Talk-Line how she could create a “tropical turkey.” Believe it or not, Talk-Line vet Mary Clingman suggested using aluminum foil as a way to make the turkey look like a sun goddess.
• When a Talk-Line staffer asked a caller what state her turkey was in (meaning how thawed was it) the caller responded with, “Florida.”

Happy Thanksgiving!