Talkin' Turkey

On Sarah Palin and the "great turkey carnage" video. I was kinda, sorta wondering what happened to "pardoned" turkeys...

I feel the need for a Children's Book - "Tom, the National Turkey."

Tom gets yanked from the cages with the rest of his buddies bound for the slaughterhouse. He gets the royal treatment, including his feathers buffed, gourmet turkey feed, etc. Pecks at the Presidential pet and is paraded around the Rose Garden in front of adoring children and numerous paparazzi for his ten minutes of fame.

Then gets carted off to the National Zoo where his turkey feed is somewhat downgraded, but there still are adoring children there to point and poke at him.

Then, weeks later, in the dead of night, someone throws a heavy burlap sack over poor Tom's National Turkey's head. He sits in a very dark place, not knowing his fate. But, hey, it's bigger than those cramped cages he grew up in. Not so bad, really.

Then the door to the truck opens and Tom runs out into the sunlight. Turns around and runs after the truck, but can't catch it. He's alone. Surrounded by...trees. Rocks. Dirt. No turkey food anywhere in sight. He tries to cry like he saw the adoring children do when their mommas grabbed them by the arms and yanked them away from his Zoo pen.

But he can't. Turkey's can't cry. Poor Tom.

Days go by and he tries competing with the pigeons and sparrows for seeds. But Tom has no idea where the seeds are. He's starving. In desperation, he tries to find his way back to the Zoo, finally stumbling onto a highway. Sees a truck coming and since he's only seen one truck in his life, he figures it's got to be coming for him. So he runs out into the middle of the road...

...and gets smacked back to the side of the road. Stumbling in his last moments, he thinks back to how all his childhood friends died to help those adoring children grow up fat and happy around Thanksgiving tables while he, Tom the National Turkey is dying slowly on the side of the road. Helping no one. Well, almost no one.

With his dying eyes, he looks up to see a flock of feathered friends swooping down towards him. Maybe, he thinks...maybe this isn't the end?

Right before the buzzards rip out his eyes and peel the flesh from beneath his National Feathers...

His last thought is how cruel this world is. You spend your life in a cage seperated by the vast majority of your peers, get picked from millions of others to spend a little time at the White House, then spend the rest of your miserable life getting your bones gnawed at by everyone and everything around you...

---oh wait, that's GWBush---

WZB