PETA has a list on their website entitled “Top ten reasons not to eat turkey.” I am not linking it here, because PETA gets enough traffic as it is. Now, I am much like my fellow Funnycrave writer Dan Seitz in that I am pretty leftward leaning in my political beliefs, and I also agree that most of the far left should choke to death on their bean sprouts. It is in this spirit of hating the hell out of the crunchy-hippy folks that I present you with the following; The Top 10 Reasons To Eat Turkey This Thanksgiving.
10. It’s Thanksgiving
I, like most of you, grew up eating an over-sized bird every year on the last Thursday of November, and I have no intention of stopping now. Call it tradition, call it a rut, call it outmoded. I call it delicious. And the fact that my turkey is spiritually bathed in the tears of Alicia Silverstone, Chrissy Hynde makes it crack-like in its ability to make me crave it. Sure, meat is murder, but if babies tasted like turkey, there would be some empty day cares in my neighborhood, let me tell you.
9. Give the Cows, Chickens and Pigs a break!
Like most meat eating folk, I enjoy a variety of kill-food, spanning the smorgasbord of farm animals that graced the pages of Charlotte’s web, except maybe the spider and the rat. Yes, I am aware there was a horse. (a delicious, delicious horse) Do you know what wasn’t at the Wasserman’s farm? Turkey. Why? Because we save it for the Thanksgiving season, so that the other farm animals can give thanks for not dying this one time of year. Unless of course, you are talking about…
8. Turducken
Evolution brought us the dinosaurs, because it knew that they would eventually evolve into birds, which would evolve into waterfowl and yard birds, and they would be killed, boned, and stuffed into the boneless carcass of a dead turkey, and filled with herbed bread. The first Thanksgiving was nature’s gentle push toward this beautiful eventuality.
7. Gravy
The perfect compliment to meat is the stuff that dripped out of it, congealed and mixed with butter and flour. Pour it over your vegetables, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce, for they are meatless abominations.
6. Jobs
Do you know where turkeys come from? ‘Merca! Land of the free, bald eagles, and turkey! That means every gobbler you down is putting food (probably turkey) on the plates of hard working Americans, and even harder working illegal immigrants from Mexico.
5. Stuffing
What would we have instead of stuffing if not for the turkey it’s cooked in? Dressing? What the hell? That’s like having steamed pizza. Leave “dressing” for people who lack the balls to eat possibly salmonella riddled bread (because it’s made with egg) into a salmonella filled body cavity of a dead animal that has to be cooked just so in order to fully cook the stuffing but not overcook the bird. Nothing great is ever easily won.
4. Deep Fried Turkey
Mahatma Ghandi once said “I love meat, but meat, like everything, is better fried!” Or maybe that was Col. Sanders. At any rate, some guy with a mustache said it, and he was right. Every year, men around the country (because women lack the gene that causes this level of self-negligent behavior) fire up blue-flamed furnaces and douse a 20 lb bird in super-heated peanut oil, risking brush fires and the lives of fragile, nut-allergic children around their neighborhood. The reward? 20 lbs of fried food. That’s normally a feat only accomplished with $40 and a value menu, and then you have to contend with buns and lettuce. Screw that noise, all the turkey has is built-in handles (bones).
3. Left overs
Possibly even better than the initial turkey dinner is the 2 week’s worth of turkey/stuffing/cranberry sauce sandwiches you’re left with. This leads to reason number two we only eat turkey twice a year: it takes the next 50 weeks of the year to not be sick of eating godamn turkey.
2. Tofurkey
I blame PETA itself for the existence of this… abomination. Only that level of whiny “I feel bad enjoying myself because something else suffers every second” comes from PETA, peppered with a dusting of “My dad votes republican and I hate him for kissing me on the neck when I visit home for the holidays.” It’s ironic that this is intended mostly for wimpy nature freaks, since no food in nature is grey and stuffed with vegetable slurry.
1. Because, you know, F*CK PETA
Seriously, f*ck you. I was on the same page, guys, back when I was in high school. Computer diagrams instead of dead frogs in formaldehyde? I agree. Stop treating pets like moving rugs and punching bags? Right on. Causing PTSD in small children because their parents took them to KFC? Go f*ck yourself. Seriously, go shave your legs and have some bacon, you humorless dipshits. The only minds you’re changing are those of people who pretty much agreed with you anyway, so your impact is a zero sum.
All you really accomplish is making people like me, who were kind of on your side, want to buy a gun and get a Triple Stacker while whistling Dixie. I have wild turkeys that walk through my yard probably 3 days out of every week. We throw bread and peanuts out for them and the crows and squirrels every day.
This Thanksgiving, they’re getting turkey.