Turkish threat highly overestimated

The other day, I went out to the barn. I glanced in and, when I saw the two large white forms in there, I went and sat in my car. It seemed safer somehow. Because what I had seen – it was like finding an MC Escher staircase in your house. It didn’t make sense.

I warily returned to the house and called my wife.

“I went out to the barn just now,” I told her.

“Yes.”

“And you’ll never guess what I saw out there.”

“Two turkeys?”

That bitch. So, she was in on it somehow. And what’s more, she had ruined a perfectly good punchline. I can count on one hand the number of times I have been able to tell anyone, anywhere, the whereabouts of living turkeys. 

I walked to the window and glanced toward the barn. There, in the loose hay behind the tractor, I could see the two large white birds. I had offered them a chance to leave. I had given them the evil eye, letting them know who was in charge here. But now I realized that these turkeys had been in our barn since early morning, and, from the looks of things, had made themselves very much at home.

“What should I do?”

”I don’t know,” she said. “But get them out of there. They’re creeping me out.”

It’s the truth. You’re sitting there now, reading this, confused as to why I found the predicament disturbing. You’re all high and mighty –  you there without any turkeys currently within earshot. And as I write this, I know that you wouldn’t be so brave if there were turkeys in the room with you. Giving you the poultry eye. Looking all feathery and shit, spindly alien legs supporting their massive Butterball physiques. 

You’re all smug, safe from any looming turkey threat. 

But here’s the thing. It’s true that turkeys are seldom (almost never) threatening when they appear on a plate beside mashed potatoes. I’ve never heard of turkey attacks, or turkey riots, or turkey rebellions, and I once knew this guy from Turkey and he was pretty cool, except that nobody, including his Caucasian wife, knew whether we were supposed to call him by his first or his last name. Despite this being confusing (Ahmed or Serkan? Ahmed or Serkan? What the fuck?), it in no way threatened my well-being – or at least, I don’t think it did. 

But two hundred pounds of sentient meat on the loose in my barn? Life and limb, baby.

I called animal control, who referred me to game and wildlife.

“Shoot them,” the wildlife guy suggested.

“I don’t want to shoot them. I don’t have a gun, anyway. I just want them out of my barn. Can you come and get them?”

“Are they brown or white?” he asked.

“White.”

“Then no, sorry.”

And just like that, civil rights took another blow. As long as the turkeys were white, they could do whatever the hell they wanted and nobody would hassle them. They had annexed the land belonging to our brown horses and nobody would stop them. Well, this ended here and now. 

Now, you should know: My kung fu is strong. But the people who think their kung fu is stronger than that of a turkey have, in all probability, never chased one around an enclosed space with a hose and manure fork. There’s more to it than you’d think. Much more. You have to factor in the dimensions of your space and the length of your hose. And the blinding, horrifying stupidity of the turkeys. 

I entered the barn. Slowly. They stood up, feigning well-bred courtesy. Wary that I was in front of the only exit, I came around to the side to try and flank them. The turkeys watched me with dumb indifference. 

The animal control guy had told me to “harass” them. That was his word: “harass.” I didn’t know any turkey slurs and didn’t know if turkeys took offense to people insulting their mothers, so I figured I’d squirt them with a hose and they’d run out the door.

What actually happened was this: I squirted them and they stayed where they were, looking offended. At least they were harassed. But hell, I wanted them to actually leave. Hurt feelings and broken dreams were helping nobody here.

The turkeys weren’t moving, so I tried to move in and around them. I didn’t want to get too close. I sprayed them. They moved further into the corner. I shot the spray behind them. They moved into it. I’d hit them in the face and they’d make a gurgling noise. I couldn’t get behind them to spray them toward the door.

So I went up. I climbed up onto a gate between the horse stalls and reigned death from above.

My quarry moved under the tractor. So at this point, I got a manure fork and proceeded to whack them with it. 

“Get out! Get out!” I yelled.

“Gbblbblbblbb!” they replied as I continued to slap them with the fork.

One and then the other stood up and ambled drunkenly toward the door. Then, blessedly, they were outside. But there they remained. Just outside. And they sat down again.

Around this time, it occurred to me that my concerns were possibly overblown and that my estimation of their intelligence might have been somewhat overstated. So I just ran after them, hoseless, and hit them with the manure fork until they were in the neighbor’s yard – wet and fully, completely, hopelessly harassed. 

The game warden was right; harassed white turkeys do not return. But I do have a neighbor with a shotgun, so I am fairly certain that the turkeys did not return because they are now in his freezer.

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