Talking turkey - do not baste with kitty litter

The holiday of Thanksgiving for those people who celebrate has passed but on its heels so to speak, is Christmas. Both holidays focus on family gatherings and sitting down (or standing as the case may be) for a festive meal with turkey as the main course. Turkey being poultry requires that certain precautions be taken when cooking the bird with some people unsure of how to go about it. This is when the Butterball turkey group who are in the business of selling turkeys and other things fowl, step in to help people out. On a personal observation, there are a lot of human turkeys I've come across in my life but I digress.

The company has set up a consumers Turkey Talk Line in which people can consult for any and all turkey-related issues. Questions can arise like how long should one roast a 25 lb. bird, or how large a turkey to buy for a party of 15 people. Normal, every day questions. Then there are issues that don't fall into the mundane, run-of-the-mill category.

For example after checking his father's freezer, a man from Alabama consulted with the Talk Line to find out about the best way to cook a 30 and then years old-ish bird. It was suggested that perhaps a good way to begin would be to buy a new turkey.

- A woman in her 70's who was cooking Thanksgiving dinner for the first time, called for assistance after her mother(!) told her that she was tired of preparing the big meal and it was time that her daughter learned how. O-kay...whatever...

- Then there's the woman who couldn't figure out why her turkey had no breast meat and was told that her turkey was merely upside down. Or a first-timer who was sobbing her heart out after thawing her turkey and rinsing it in dish soap no less and couldn't get rid of the suds from the bird. At least there would be clean cuts.

- There's oil - and then there's oil a man who called to say that he had cut his turkey in half using a chainsaw and wondered if the oil from the chain would affect the turkey.

Any and all turkey-related questions covering all categories are answered by a team of presumably turkey experts at the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line, a free 24-hour, call-in hot line. It's open to residents living in the U.S. and Canada throughout November and December by calling 1-800-BUTTERBALL. There is a plethora of information for everyone focusing on everything turkey - and then some:

http://www.butterball.com/contact-us#faqs

By the way, I recall a while back somebody forgetting to remove the bag of giblets from inside the turkey cavity and roasting them. Gave it that je ne sais quoi flavor. Thinking further, it just could have been me.

My favorite turkey-related question was posed by a woman who wanted to know if it was all right to cook her turkey on a bed of cat litter. Only if she asks the cat permission.

OF LOST EYEBALL...DEFLATED DOLL...AND OTHER IMPORTANT STUFF

Came accross two interesting tales of loss worth passing on. Maybe it's just my quirkie sense of humor but they did make me smile. That's life!


Let's say...you're staying at a hotel in this case in Tasmania and somebody knocks on your hotel room door to deliver a box. Let's say...you open it and staring down at the contents, are greeted with an eye ball staring back.

That's exactly what happened to a hotel guest in Tasmania when he received a foam cold box containing a single human eyeball. The box marked 'Live human organs for transplant' was delivered by mistake to a hotel in Hobart by a taxi driver.

Hotel worker Gabriel Winner, who requested the name of the hotel not be used (I bet!), says the agitated guest brought the box to reception.

"The guy left with me with a box with an eyeball in it,'" he said. "I thought this is just too weird. I went and put it in the fridge because I didn't know what else to do with it. It was more than a little disconcerting."

So this leaves one to wonder why Mr. Winner (interesting name is this case) would assume that one of his guests was waiting for the delivery of an eyeball. I mean, it's not something that most if not all people would order. Even more interesting that he put it in the fridge along with other "normal" food. Can you imagine the shock a hotel employee would receive when opening the fridge to take a prepared sandwich for lunch?It's something out of a horror movie!

MAD SCIENTIST
Igor...go deliver this eyeball

IGOR
Where master?

MAD SCIENTIST
Let me check the destination... The Provincial Hospital

IGOR
Sorry? Could you repeat that?

MAD SCIENTIST
When are you going to get a hearing aid? I said, 'Provincial Hospital'

IGOR
Of course, master. Provincial Hotel...

And the rest as they say, is history.

An Australian Air Express spokeswoman confirmed a "failure in an internal handover process'" and apologized.

To say the least.

"As soon as we discovered the error we quickly rectified that and delivered the consignment within the appropriate timeframe,'" she said.Queensland Health spokeswoman Penny Geraghty said tissue from the eye was recovered and successfully transferred to a patient. "Nobody missed their operation. The tissue wasn't compromised," she said.

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Sometimes you can't win for losing. Take the case of this Romanian guy who recently registered a complaint with officials that his inflatable doll has lost its moan. Not knowing anyone who has ever encountered this - um - situation or problem, I would imagine that - um - a moan-less adult doll would be kind of...demoralizing.

"Moan, damn you, Isla!" the man probably/could have/might have said as he... Never mind.

A sex shop in Brasov, Transylvania, was fined 600£ and ordered to provide the man, said to be in his 40s, with a new doll.

The man had also complained that the rubber doll deflated too quickly(!), according to local media.

Well... I'm no scientist or physicist but perhaps - um - the doll's owner was a little bit too - how shall we say - active with his vinyl "friend?"

Iulian Mara, head of the local Consumer Protection Office, said: "No matter how strange it sounded to us, we went to the sex-shop from where the man bought the object of complaint and found out he was justified.

So...like...how did Mr. Mara et al discover that the complaint was justified, one asks/ponders.

"The doll was losing air very quickly and due to a faulty electrical circuit it didn't make the expected specific sounds."Oh gawd! Electricity is involved? I mean, what about shocks? Did the doll operate on batteries or was she a plug-in, one wonders...

There is no mention you will note, about what type of sounds were uttered.

Never a dull moment in Transylvania...

BOYS TEST THE THEORY THAT TONGUE+FLAG POLE IN WINTER=PAIN

Many people reading this will recall the memorable scene in the seasonal favorite, "A Christmas Story" where young Flick is double-dared by his friends into testing whether his tongue would stick to a flagpole, causing teacher Miss Shields to comment:

"Now I know that some of you put Flick up to this, but he has refused to say who. But those who did it know their blame, and I'm sure that the guilt you must feel would be far worse than any punishment you might receive. Now, don't you feel terrible? Don't you feel remorse for what you have done? Well, that's all I'm going to say about poor Flick."

This time, though, not one but two 4th grade boys decided to do the same thing and found out first-hand that it worked.

Gavin Dempsey and James Alexander were serving on flag duty at Jackson Elementary School Friday morning, with the job of raising and lowering the school’s flags. They decided to see if their tongues really would stick to the cold metal.

“I decided to try it because I thought all of the TV shows were lies, but turns out I was wrong,” Gavin said.

Karen Alexander, James’ mother , said her son told her he got the idea from the movie, which is based on stories about a boy growing up in the northwest Indiana community of Hammond in the 1940s.

“I can’t believe he did it, but they learned their lesson,” she said.

James said he plans to eat a lot of ice cream to help nurse his wound.

“When you’re young, you’re just messing around,” he said.

Billie Dempsey, Gavin’s mom, said a nurse called them to tell them the boys’ tongues were bleeding.

“The nurse asked them, ‘OK, who double-dog dared who?”’ Billie Dempsey said, a reference to a phrase that a character in the movie used to dare another child to stick his tongue to the pole.

Thank goodness the boys relegated their true-to-life imitation to just their tongues and not other parts of their body.


Writers & Friends
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OF FRIED BULL TESTICLES...PLAYING CHICKEN(S)...JAIL BREAK-IN/OUT

This first report belongs in the "what in the world were/are they thinking" file and there's no account for taste, in the true sense of the world.

In excess of 300 people forked out (in the true sense of the word) U.S. $5 for "all-you-can-eat" goat, lamb and - wait for it - fried bull testicles recently in the 9th annual Testical Festival at Mama's Place Bar and Grill in Elderon in central Wisconsin.

The festival was established twelve years ago back during a birthday party when celebrants decided to have a "nut fry" at the eatery after introducing lamb fries from a trip to Montana. Over the year the festival has grown to the point where 45 kilograms of testicles are fried up and served to testicle aficionados.

Different strokes for different folks...


Playing Chicken(s)

In as far as chickens are concerned they are considered a food item but not always. Take for example, two chickens living in China who are earning their keep playing soccer. According to the owner the bantam chickens have become addicted to the game. Perhaps they also realize that the day they stop playing, they could end up on a plate as the main course but perhaps this is too cynical a view of their usefulness.

The owner brought home a football after finding it and kicked it in the direction of the chickens. After getting over their initial fear they now get their kicks handling various soccer plays and positions.

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_2326505.html?menu=

Intruder unaware of the concept

Then there's the story of the trespasser who broke in a jail in a New Zealand police station accidentally locking himself in.

There is no reason supplied as to the reason behind the break-in when an interloper broke into a police station in the town of Matamata through the front door, following which she/she proceeded to the cell block and was accidentally locked in when the self-closing door clicked shut.

At the point where police rushed in response to the intruder alarm, the intruder used a wooden chair inside a cell to smash through a window to freedom. This leads one to wonder why would any person want to break into a jail to begin with. A pre-arranged rendez-vous with a prisoner or perhaps the interloper was a former prisoner who missed her/his cell... Go know!


Writers& Friends
www.jrslater.com/forum

Married goat wed to human succumbs to stuck baggies

This report belongs into the "what in the..." file.

A goat who was an Internet sensation when the story hit cyber space that it/she had been wed to a human male in Sudan, has died. Seems that local elders found said man having - um - a sexual relationship with Rosie-the-goat and ordered him to - wait for it - marry her i.e. the goat.

The concept behind the marry-her-or-else order was to embarrass the man and there is no information available whether it was a shot-gun wedding. Following the "marriage" and presumably the bride wore white, Rosie had an offspring - not the human-type - so we have to assume that Rosie was a philanderer or a sleep-around goat.

Culturally, in Sudan if a man is caught sleeping with a girl, he is ordered to marry her immediately in order to save her honour and that of her family. Save..a goat's...honor? Like...how do they know who the goat's parents were, anyway? More to the point, did anybody involved bother asking Rosie how she felt about marrying a human?

There is also no information regarding the funeral arrangements or whether Rosie's offspring will be/was present. What a world we live in...


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6619983.stm