A few of you may know that I have been writing for several years. I've actually published a couple of books, and one of them was about the band in the story below. I meant for this to be one of a collection of stories that I was planning, though this episode was the only one that was ever completed. Maybe I need to pick up where I left off and write more.
Just to introduce everyone, Sharazada is a fictional rock band that I came up with shortly after high school, and I've been filling my hard drive with ramblings about them ever since. They're wonderful musicians, but everything else they do becomes a three-ring circus. ...And I know you will notice one of the names in the story is very familiar. I stole my screen name from my lead singer, lol! :) Did you *really* think my name was Ariadne Naudia??
So here's one of my Sharazada stories...enjoy! :)
A Very Sharazada Thanksgiving
It was two days until Thanksgiving Day, and the members of Sharazada had decided to start a new tradition of having some holidays together as a band. The band itself felt more like a family than anything, so choosing to spend a holiday together had not been a hard decision. Of course they had invited relatives, though with the snowstorm that had been forecasted for the week of Thanksgiving, everyone had to wonder how many people would be able to show up.
Snowstorms and traveling plans aside, the band had told everyone that they would do all the cooking and preparing for the holiday. There was just one little problem: no one in Sharazada was a particularly decent cook. Microwaving chicken strips had presented a challenge before, let alone cooking a huge turkey. They did well not to burn French fries in the oven, let alone make mashed potatoes. None of them had a clue where to begin to make gravy. Nikki had already taken to looking up cranberry sauce recipes on the internet, and Ariadne was trying to figure out how her mother made her signature macaroni casserole all those years. The only thing that didn’t seem to be too hard to figure out would be the rolls, and the directions were pretty straight forward: take them out of the pack, and bake them at 350 for about twenty minutes. Surely someone in that house could keep that under control.
Then again, we are talking about Sharazada.
Austin had put himself in charge of cooking any vegetables that would be on the table for Thanksgiving, figuring it would be an easy job. Wrong. He soon figured out there was a little more to it than dumping green beans in a pot and boiling them. Tina decided she would make deviled eggs, but realized a little too late that she had no idea how.
But first thing had been first. The band had made a grocery list, and then gone and gotten everything they thought they would need. The six of them stood there, looking at the numerous bags of groceries that were setting on the table, and all thinking the same thing.
“So,” Austin finally said, “we have all this stuff, now what the heck are we supposed to do with it?”
The response was a unanimous “Uhhhh….” And most everyone scratched their heads.
Ariadne looked at the turkey. It was twenty pounds and frozen solid.
“I guess that needs to thaw out over night.” She said.
“Unless we plan to cut it with a chain saw.” Austin quipped.
“Funny.” She said, putting the bird on the counter where it could thaw out, “I’ll start figuring this thing out tomorrow.”
“Heh,” Tina said, “good luck!”
Nikki looked around. “I think it’s gonna take a little more than luck to figure all this out!”
“Hey,” Austin said, “if other people can do it, so can we!”
“Other people know what they’re doing.” Nikki said.
“Oh, and we don’t?”
“Uhh, nope!”
Austin pointed toward the living room. “There’s the computer. We can start looking stuff up!”
The three girls looked at each other. Ariadne shrugged. “He’s got a point.”
So early the next morning, the band scoured every online resource they could find. Other than a couple of simple recipes they might be able to use, the internet really didn’t turn up much in the way of Thanksgiving how-to’s that sounded like they were all that great, so everyone in the band decided to fall back on a reliable stand-by when it came to domestic questions of any kind: they called their mothers.
“Hi mom,” Ariadne said when her mother answered the phone, “um, I need some advice.”
“What’cha need?” she asked.
“Well,” Ariadne replied, looking down at the turkey that set in the kitchen sink with it’s back end pointing up toward her and it’s legs hanging in either direction, “I need to know how to fix this turkey.”
“How far have you gotten with it?”
“Um, it’s thawed and upside down in the sink.”
“Can you see the little plastic bag inside it?” her mother asked.
“Yes. What is that?”
“The giblets.”
“The whatlets?”
“Giblets. It’s just bits and pieces.”
“So, what am I supposed to do? Do I just let them cook in there?”
“No, I’ll tell you how to handle them…”
Ariadne stood there for a moment. Her eyes grew wide as her mother told her what to do with the little bag that was inside that big, cold, wet, slimy bird.
“You mean you want me to stick my hand in the where…and pull out the what?!”
“Yes,” her mom replied, “just reach into the turkey, pull that bag out and lay it to the side.”
“Mom,” she said, “there is no way I’m reaching up a bird’s butt!”
“Ari, just do it. It’s a little too dead to reach around and peck you!”
“Well, yeah,” she chuckled, “considering the thing doesn’t even have a neck to reach around with!”
“That’s in the bag.”
“Ewwwww!” Ariadne squealed, letting go of the turkey’s legs.
It slid into the sink with a squishing sound and laid there, the corner of the bag visible from the back.
“What just happened?” her mom asked.
“Nothing…I just dropped the turkey in the sink.”
“Well, grab the bag and pull it out.”
Ariadne slowly reached for the bag, but couldn’t quite bring herself to grab it.
“Mom, this is really gross!” she said.
“Oh just do it!”
About that time Mike walked up beside her, grabbed the turkey from her hands, snatched the bag out and laid it to the side. He walked away without a word.
“Never mind, mom.” She said, watching Mike as he left the room, “It’s handled.”
“Alright,” her mom replied, “let me know if there’s anything else you need.”
“I will.” She answered, afraid that if she asked her mom how to actually fix this thing, she just might find out.
She said bye to her mom and went back to trying to prepare this turkey. She had never done any of this before and she was more than just a little confused. She had watched her dad prepare a turkey one year, and tried her best to remember how he did it. She searched the cabinets and the fridge for anything that looked like it would work. After a few minutes she gathered what she thought she needed and proceeded to start the turkey.
As she was doing this, Sparky came into the kitchen and from the cabinet pulled a bag of stuffing mix, a can of broth, and a couple of spices. From the fridge he got some butter and one of the eggs they had boiled the night before. He snuck one more thing out of a cabinet, set all of the ingredients on the counter, grabbed a mixing bowl, and went to work.
Ariadne watched curiously as Sparky proceeded to pour the stuffing mix and everything else into the bowl and mixed it. He then added an unexpected ingredient.
“Popcorn?” she asked, “Spark, what the heck are you doing?”
“Making stuffing.” He replied.
“I’ve never heard of using popcorn in stuffing before.”
“Oh, this is a special family recipe.” He smiled, “It’s good, but you have to be careful and make sure you know exactly when it’s done, or it won’t come out right.”
“And how do you know when it’s done?”
Sparky grinned. “First you have to listen, and then you have to watch.”
“Um, okay.” She replied, putting the turkey into the roaster, “I think I’ll leave that up to you.”
“Hold it with the bird!” Sparky said, “This stuff goes in it!”
“Oh, um, okay.” She said, pushing the roaster across the counter to him.
As Ariadne watched Sparky, Tina came into the kitchen and grabbed the phone. They could tell she was a little frustrated.
“Hey mom,” she said into the phone, “How do you make cranberry sauce? Nikki and I can’t figure it out…”
Ariadne shook her head. “I think we’re all about lost around here.”
“I’m not!” Sparky grinned.
“I can see that.” Ariadne replied, “And that’s what scares me.”
He stood there for a moment and happily stuffed the turkey with his unusual concoction. When he was done, he put it in the oven and smiled.
“Now we just wait.” He said.
“Whatever you say, Spark.”
They finished making a few other various things, including the cranberry sauce now that they were armed with Tina’s mom’s recipe, and then all of them went into the living room to watch TV as they waited for the turkey to cook. For about four hours, there was nothing much to do except wait.
Suddenly, the band began to hear popping sounds coming from the kitchen. A grin began to cross Sparky’s lips.
“Uh, Sparky,” Nikki said, “the turkey…”
“It’s not done yet.” He said, “Almost, but not quite.”
After a moment the popping got louder, and much more frequent.
“Um, Spark…” Ariadne said.
“Not yet…” he replied, “In just a minute or two.”
The band waited, not sure exactly what they were waiting for. The popping shortly became almost frenzied. Suddenly the door on the stove flew open, and a twenty pound turkey flew across the room, popcorn shooting from it’s rear and stuffing splattering everywhere. It bounced off the wall and landed on a platter Sparky had left waiting on the counter. The turkey’s legs jerked occasionally as the last of the popcorn popped, and a greasy streak dripped down the wall where it had hit. It was a few minutes before anyone got brave enough to approach the turkey to make sure it was done. Sparky stood there grinning.
“New rule!” Nikki exclaimed, “Sparky is no longer allowed to touch any of the kitchen appliances, or anything that goes in them!”
“Actually,” Austin said as he sampled the stuffing, “this stuff isn’t bad!”
Sparky looked around with a satisfied grin.
“I give up!” Nikki sighed.
“Oops!” Tina suddenly realized, “I forgot to make the deviled eggs!”
She pulled the bowl of hard boiled eggs out of the fridge and set them on the counter. Ariadne and Nikki decided to give her a hand by getting the shells off of them.
“Wait a second,” Tina said, “there’s only eleven eggs in here! I made a dozen!”
Sparky looked around sheepishly and then glanced at the turkey.
“Ya could have told me!” Tina said as she began cutting the remaining eggs in half and dumping the yolks into a bowl.
“Sorry! I didn’t think one would matter.”
Tina said nothing else, just shook her head as she went about what she was doing, ingredients in one hand, cup of coffee in the other.
“What are you doing?” Nikki asked her as she pulled out the blender.
“Mixing the egg guts.” Tina replied.
“In a blender?”
“Seems like the easiest plan to me.”
She dumped the yolks, mustard, pickles and a couple other things into the blender and plugged it in.
“Uh, Tina,” Ariadne started, “you don’t quite have the…”
Before she could finish, Tina pressed the button marked “puree” and in about two seconds the walls were covered.
“…lid on straight.” Ariadne finished.
Tina stood there with egg all over her face, in more ways than one. She wiped it off her cheek and then out of curiosity, tried it.
“Not bad.” She said. She looked down, “But I got it in my coffee!”
Nikki looked around at the mess dripping from the walls. “Please tell me we got plenty of paper towels.”
“Twelve rolls.” Mike nodded, “Jumbo rolls at that.”
“Good.” She said.
“Wait,” Ariadne realized, “weren’t we supposed to wait until Thanksgiving Day to cook they turkey, not the day before?”
“If our parents and siblings had seen that turkey fly across the room,” Sparky said, “do you really think they would have eaten it?”
Nikki looked dazed. “Sparky’s got a point.” She said, “Albeit a screwed up point, but nonetheless a point.”
“Great,” Ariadne replied, “I’ll just hang a picture over that dent in the wall!”
Sparky grinned. “Or else paint a bull’s eye on it for next year!”
Ariadne rolled her eyes at him. “No.”
“I guess we can heat the turkey back up tomorrow.” Austin suggested, “It’ll free the oven up for other things anyway.”
Nikki shrugged. “True.”
“In the meantime,” Tina said, having washed her face and gotten a fresh cup of coffee, “I’m going to start boiling more eggs.”
“Uh, yeah,” Ariadne suggested, “try blending the stuff in a bowl this time.”
“Hey,” Mike said, “I just thought of something…what are we planning to do about dessert?”
Nikki grinned and opened the freezer door. “Heat and serve!” she said of the four pies that were in there.
“Oh good.” Mike said, “I was wondering how we were gonna figure that out!”
“Um,” Nikki said, “does anyone know how many people are coming?”
“My mom, my brother and sister.” Austin said.
“Mom and dad.” Sparky said.
“Mine wouldn’t give me an answer.” Mike said, “They said they might.”
“Both of my parents are coming.” Ariadne said.
“Mine too.” Tina said.
“And my parents are coming.” Nikki said, getting a pen and paper out. “Let’s see here, six band members, and nine other people, possibly eleven if Mike’s show up…that is seventeen people if everyone shows up. Um, are we making enough stuff?”
They looked around at the things that had already been made, and the list of things that had yet to be made.
“Yeah,” Austin said, “I’d say we are.”
“We might want to make another turkey, just in case.” Tina suggested.
Nikki nodded. “Good call.”
Sparky was already grinning.
“Sparky, no.” Ariadne said, “Not again.”
“Aww come on!” he whined, “I wanna make it!”
“I have to admit,” Austin said, “his idea of stuffing is pretty good.”
“Alright!” Ariadne sighed, “Just put something on the wall for it to bounce off of this time, okay?”
“Great!” Sparky said, raiding the fridge and cabinets for more stuff, “You go get the turkey and I’ll be ready when it gets here!”
“You are way too into this.” Ariadne replied as she picked up her pocket book, “Who’s coming with me?”
A few minutes later, Nikki, Ariadne and Tina were heading down the driveway. When the cat’s away, the mice will play. The guys decided to try out a few recipes of their own, and by the time the girls got back home, the house was full of smoke, there was a big puddle of grease in the floor, the rest of the eggs were missing, and there was a piece of cheese stuck the ceiling fan.
The girls stood there in disbelief, bags of groceries in hand, with their mouths hanging open and their eyes wide.
“I don’t know,” Nikki said, putting her bags on the counter, “I don’t want to know, and you guys have five minutes to have it cleaned up.”
The guys stood there and looked at each other as if they had no idea what she was talking about.
“Ahem!” she growled, giving them a look to kill.
“I’ll grab the mop!” Mike said as Austin and Sparky scurried to get the walls and ceiling cleaned up.
The rest of the evening came and went quickly as the band continued trying to make good on their promise of fixing a nice Thanksgiving dinner for everyone, though at the moment it looked more like chaos. By the time it was over, everything that could be reheated the next day was ready and waiting in the fridge. The guys had gone out to the garage and gotten a couple of fold up tables and several chairs to ensure that everyone had a place to sit.
“This,” Nikki said as she and Ariadne moved the dining room table over a couple of feet, “is the beauty of having a huge dining room!”
The next morning came. It was Thanksgiving Day. The big snowstorm that had been forecasted had gone north of Asheville, and they had gotten nothing more than a nice dusting. Around eleven in the morning, just as everyone had said they would, cars started pulling into the driveway. By one in the afternoon, everyone was there, including Mike’s family.
While half of the band hung out with their house full of guests, Austin, Ariadne and Nikki busied themselves in the kitchen getting the finishing touches done. Austinhad made a macaroni casserole, but as soon as it came out of the oven, it was clear something was wrong. The cheese hadn’t melted through it. In fact, the cheese was what looked so messed up.
“Um, Austin,” Ariadne asked as she smelled of it, a weird odor coming from it, “did you use sliced cheese on this?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Did you unwrap them first?”
Austin looked surprised. “They were wrapped?!”
Ariadne rolled her eyes and dumped the dish’s contents into the trash can. “Nikki,” she asked, “would you start some noodles boiling while I get some cheese ready, please?”
Just then, they began hearing popping sounds coming from the oven.
“Oh geez,” Nikki said, realizing Sparky had put the other turkey in there to cook, “here we go again!”
They kept on with what they were doing, listening for the popping to get faster and louder. When it did, they stepped out of the way and waited. Within just a couple moments, the bird shot out of the oven, bounced off the piece of plastic they had put up to protect the wall, and landed on the platter.
“Well, turkey’s taken care of.” Nikki said, resuming the rest of the cooking as if what had just taken place were nothing, “How are the potatoes coming?”
“Almost done.” Ariadne replied.
Austin began setting the table, and just a little while later everything was finally ready. The band and their families sat down, glad to be getting a chance for everyone to spend a holiday together as one very big family. The blessing was said, and then Thanksgiving was underway.
“Everything looks great.” Tina’s Dad said, “You guys really did a good job.”
“Yes you did.” Ariadne’s mom agreed, “It looks wonderful.”
And everything did look wonderful…until they started hearing popping sounds and the turkeys started jerking around and then walked across the tables by themselves…
Happy Holidays, Everybody!
The End…Until Christmas…
