When cutting-edge technology no longer is
The Legend of the Little Thanksgiving Knife that Couldn’t
They just couldn’t wait to tear into that turkey
November, some year in the 21st Century.
New Girlfriend and I were as madly in love as Bernadette and Howard on The Big Bang Theory.
Girlfriend wanted to put an exclamation point on our various and sundry rendezvous by inviting Boyfriend to her family’s Thanksgiving dinner. Nice!
I had known Girlfriend, Sister 1, Sister 2 and Sister 3 since my acne-and-braces days, so this was basically to be a big reunion. But this time I was coming to impress. Becoming Brother 1 was a distinct possibility, so this was to be my big corporate interview-meets-SAT test moment.
Sister 1, caretaker of the family manor where the holiday festivities were to be held, called me to ask if I would do the honors of carving the turkey and if I owned a sharp knife.
My answers were “yes, of course” and “who was president the last time you sharpened your kitchen knife?” although I tactfully didn’t let the latter words pass my lips.
“In fact,” I said, “I have an electric carving knife!”
Ooh. Ahh.
This was impressive only because the collective bunch of us was old enough to drain the Social Security Administration’s funds on our own that year or in the coming two. We still held electric knives in the same high regard as coffee percolators and Jello molds.
My electric knife had been a bridal shower gift to my late wife back in 1978 when the Bee Gees ruled the airwaves and everything with the possible exception of diapers was made of Polyester.
It was made by either Oster, West Bend, Sunbeam or some other 70s classic brand and sported a two-tone finish of Avocado Green (of course) and The Color That’s Burned Into Your Eyes After 927 Diaper Changes.
But I knew it worked.
My family generally had a turkey dinner only once a year, at Thanksgiving, so the rough number of times that knife was used was about 40, 45 tops. That’s not enough wear and tear to even get the new smell out of the appliance, no?
Anyway, the Big Day came and we all gathered at Girlfriend’s family home. Sisters 1, 2 and 3 along with all their peripherals and attachments were there, everyone greeting me warmly and sizing me up like a new sliding glass patio door.
“Looks good. Should work.”
All went well with the appetizer course chats and a round of adult beverages. Then the Big Moment came.
Sister 1, eager to get the feast going, summoned me into the kitchen with all the pomp and ceremony of mounting a knight onto a jousting horse.
We were surrounded by Girlfriend, Sister 2, Sister 3 and perhaps another peripheral or two because A. family feasts there meant every woman present squeezed into the kitchen to help until it looked like a clown car and B. Boyfriend was about to demonstrate his future usefulness to the clan.
Not one to underestimate the gravity of the moment, I took the box holding my 1978 electric knife out of the paper bag in which I had brought it, opened it and removed the knife with a subtle flourish that I hoped was just the right blend of humility and confidence.
All eyes were on me as I deftly assembled the blades to the avocado green-and-excrement colored knife body and plugged it into a nearby outlet.
Like a motorcyclist revving his engine at a stoplight I gave the trigger a manly squeeze or two, just to impress the Ladies.
Was it my imagination or was the revving a few tones lower than I remembered it to be? It had been three years since I last used the knife, so it’s just my fading memory, right?
C’mon. 45 uses max. The avocado-and-feces colored thing was almost brand-new.
I focused on the task at hand and set out to impress everyone with my knowledge of the correct way to carve a turkey, not the way most people that I had not personally watched were doing it.
The two reciprocating blades of the electric knife bit into the breast of the freshly-roasted turkey with all the might and power of a butter knife meeting a hard wheel of Pecorino Romano cheese.
The blades noticeably slowed, matched by an accompanying wheezing of the motor.
I let up on the trigger and silence reigned, as all breathing had stopped to witness Art being performed on the family kitchen table.
I instinctively went into Man Mode: “What I’m Seeing Isn’t Actually Happening and I Should Just Continue as if Everything Is Normal.”
I squeezed the trigger again and watched as the two blades slid back and forth against each other with all the deliberation and speed of a cuckoo clock pendulum.
This is normal, right? The blades always moved languidly like an aroused cheerleader’s thighs every time I carved a turkey since 1978, no?
To be fair, the turkey meat was actually being cut. “Cut” being a relative term that includes the precision with which one’s leg is severed in a motor vehicle accident.
By this time the Audience in the kitchen was sensing that something was amiss. A one-eyed WWII veteran with a bayonet would have had at least four healthy slices of turkey on the serving platter by now.
I heard myself spewing words that were an explanation, an apology, a plan of action and a stage magician’s monologue of misdirection all thrown into a blender.
The family crowding around me was coming alive. Sister 2 was making light of everything and firing off random wisecracks. Sister 3 was offering suggestions to the best of her limited knowledge of the world of Small Appliances.
Right about this time the assembled rubberneckers were made aware of a new odor in the kitchen, one not remotely on the Roasted Fowl spectrum. It more closely reminded one of burning plastic, lubricating oil and other components of a kitchen appliance.
Any questions regarding its source were quickly put aside as growing wisps of smoke emanated from the avocado-and-poo colored knife handle in Boyfriend’s hand.
Sister 1, the kitchen and household queen, made the rational decision to jump in with a (non-electric) kitchen knife and pick up where Boy Genius had left off.
Two knives were now penetrating the turkey breast, my slowly dying, smoking electric one and Sister 1’s that had last been sharpened the year President Carter lost his reelection bid.
Then I noticed another surgical implement in the operating room. Girlfriend, in an act of desperation to end her and Boyfriend’s mortification, was wielding a serving fork and using it to rip chunks of turkey breast off the carcass like a zombie extra in an episode of The Walking Dead.
In short order, amid the mounting voices of advice and concern and giggles of levity, the turkey was reduced to something akin to roadkill after buzzards have had their fill for the week.
I glanced at Girlfriend who was busy hurrying the Thanksgiving centerpiece/patient/evidence away from the crime scene and into the dining room. She was not returning my glance.
Sister 1 was gracious, Sister 2 was still laughing and Sister 3 was back out regaling the rest of the guests who had not witnessed the massacre.
As the Sisters and peripherals went about their business, I had one last task to complete. With all the remaining self-respect and remnants of wounded pride I could muster I carried the dead 1978 avocado-and-shit colored electric knife to the kitchen garbage can, and with a flourish exceeding my earlier one hurled it inside.
My pride stung like a shin making acquaintance with a bed frame. What’s wrong with holding on to a shower gift from 40 years ago? Who knew that barely-used electric knives could die of old age? Sheesh.
Girlfriend, who had maintained her composure and was the model family member, guest and date throughout the rest of the evening, answered those questions in no uncertain terms much later.
She had wanted me to be the guest star of the show, but didn’t expect me to headline the cold open of a Saturday Night Live episode.
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