It’s like they know.
It’s like some weird dog whistle blows over our house when I’m exhausted. When I haven’t laughed in days. When I feel overwhelmed and depressed. When I just need something to make me smile. And they appear. Always. Except even though I use the dog whistle analogy, I’m not talking about wild dogs or anything. I’m talking about the turkeys. Like the old Field of Dreams analogy, “If she is depressed, they will come.”
For I-don’t-even-know-how-long, there have been three nearly-domesticated turkeys that roam the streets near our house. Maybe roam is not quite the right word…perhaps own? It’s crazy. Sometimes, I’ll go for weeks without seeing them and I’ll wonder if that was it, if they got hit by a car or something. But then there will be times when I’ll see them regularly, for an extended period of time, and it’s like they’ve never left. (But where have they gone in the interim?)
Anyway regardless, they always seem to appear when I need the comic relief the most (or perhaps I search them out more when I’m in need of a good laugh?). And when they appear, they never disappoint. Case in point:
They hang out on the corner at a fairly major intersection. Like we’re talking, cars-coming-off-a-highway intersection. Or cars merging onto a highway. Depends on how you look at it. But the intersection where they hang out is the last stoplight before 70-mph of freedom. Or in NJ, maybe 15 mph if it’s rush hour and you’re lucky. But anyway…
They have this tendency to start crossing the road and then stop. It’s like they step off the curb, take a step into the road, and panic. Although maybe ‘panic’ is a stretch; these birds are completely comfortable in their own oblivion. Sometimes gobbling (are they mad?), but inevitably irritating cars trying to get around them. And.not.moving.
They are big. Huge, really.
And they literally stop traffic.
There have been days when the stoplight will cycle through multiple times before a car can get through the intersection. What’s the hold up, you ask? Depends on the day. Sometimes it’s their conga line, as they attempt to cross the road. Other times, the trek across the road is just too long (it’s a single lane road!), as evidenced by the frequent naps that the female takes in the middle of.the.road. No, she wasn’t hit by a car. She just sits. A nonviolent protest demonstration. A literal sit-in to protest our country’s love of their kin on Thanksgiving? Or sometimes it’s purely a simple Frogger-type escapade, as the turkeys attempt to weave in and out of traffic, unsuccessfully mind you, inevitably resulting in gridlock and even more confusion for these highly intelligent (?) animals.
You could almost make a joke out of these birds. Oh wait.
I’ve got a good one for you:
Why did the turkey cross the road?
To prove it wasn’t a chicken.
Or better yet:
Did you hear about the conservative turkey?
It had two right wings.
If you aren’t laughing at these (mom) jokes, then you’ve got the winter blues worse than I do. Take my word for it, the turkeys are almost as good at getting me out of a funk as a Caribbean getaway during the long winter months. Almost. But not quite. (Hint, hint.)
Anyway. They make me smile. Call me simple. But when you have four months of winter, bookended by a month of gray skies on either end, you’ll take a smile when you can get it.
But names. These three need names. I can’t just continue referring to them as the turkeys. Hmm, it’s two boys and a girl, or two toms and a hen (for the sophisticated in the group). So how about:
- Larry, Curly, and Maureen;
- Peter, Paul, and Mary;
- Harry, Ron, and Hermione;
- Luke, Han Solo, and Princess Leia;
- Winnie, Kevin, and Paul;
- .
- .
- .
- Or maybe Version 3.0, 4.0, and 5.0?
If only they’d be Dubowsky’s…