Fun_People Archive
26 Nov
The Cameron Column #1 (from #57)

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 97 15:03:44 -0800
To: Fun_People
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Subject: The Cameron Column #1 (from #57)

Excerpted-from: The Cameron Column # 57

A FREE Internet Newsletter brought to you by W. Bruce Cameron.  Did you ever
think life was going to be this good? If you are not a subscriber, please
consider joining the intelligent humans who are!  Send a message to
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		[... snip ...]
    The following column was the first Cameron Column ever written, and for
sentimental reasons I re-print it every year at this time.  I hope you enjoy
it.  Thank you for your support these two great years!

Bruce
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Like many men, I am different from my wife in ways which are noticeable,
and, in my opinion, fortunate.

Take the Thanksgiving turkey  (and I mean that literally.   PLEASE come over
to our house, open the refrigerator, shove aside everything growing green
fuzz, and take this carcass away before it reincarnates as turkey lasagna
or turkey tetracycline or whatever new concoction awaits the family.)   But
take Thanksgiving--my wife prefers small birds that fit nicely into the
roasting pan and which can be cooked in a few hours.

"Ha!" I can be quoted as sneering.  I trace my own gender lineage to that
proud, hairy group of hunter-gatherers who, prior to the invention of TV
remote control, would pick up their spears, huddle, and then go out and pull
down a huge bison for dinner, stopping at the bar on the way home for a
couple of cave brews.  So when I go to the store for a turkey, I find a
TURKEY:  a mammoth, many-pound fowl with drum sticks as large as my thighs
and wings you could park a car under.

Words cannot describe the delight on my wife's face when my neighbors help
me carry the bird into the refrigerator, where, following the instructions,
it is left to thaw for a period of six months.   (My wife often has several
interesting but impractical suggestions on where else we might stick the
turkey for this thawing procedure.)  Cooking begins around Halloween, a slow
roasting process which varies from my mother's recipe in that there are no
flames or threats of divorce "if anybody says a word about how the turkey
tastes."

I enjoy every step of turkey preparation, particularly since I am not
involved in any of it.  Well, that's not entirely true--at one point, I am
asked to reach into the mouth of the turkey and retrieve the giblets, which
turns out to be a bag of what looks like pieces of Jimmy Hoffa.  (I realize
I am not, technically speaking, putting my hand in the bird's "mouth," but
I'd rather not dwell on what this means.)  How the turkey manages to swallow
this stuff in the first place is beyond me.  Traditionally, we open this
bag, dump the contents into a pan of water, and boil the results.  Only the
cat is happy about this development.

As wonderful as this all is, by the fourth or fifth night my appetite for
turkey variations has waned, and I provide valuable feedback to my wife by
making gagging noises at dinner time.   Her verbal (as opposed to
projectile) response to this is to imply that it is somehow MY fault we have
so many leftovers, to which I logically reply, "hey, YOU cooked it."

Now, before you men out there become too smug with how adroitly I out
maneuvered her with my quick retort, you should be advised that she STILL
blames me for our turkey-induced bulimia.  Therefore I appeal to my
readership:  has anyone else noticed bizarre psychiatric reactions to turkey
consumption which might explain this whole controversy?  Please advise via
return e-mail, which will be picked up by the crack WBC technical team and,
judging by previous results, forwarded to the Governor of New Jersey.

Thanks... oh, and Happy Thanksgiving too.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Copyright W. Bruce Cameron 1997

© 1997 Peter Langston