# A Thanksgiving practical joke -- or, "Turducken Cover"
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thanksgiving-practical-joke-or-turducken-cover/427391
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [November 22, 2007, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thanksgiving-practical-joke-or-turducken-cover/427391 "2007-11-22T02:08:31Z")
**Posts on this page:** 15
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)
#### Post date: [November 22, 2007, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thanksgiving-practical-joke-or-turducken-cover/427391/1 "2007-11-22T02:08:31Z")
OK, so this forwarded-via-email story is very likely an Urban Legend, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t do my duty in spreading around a perfectly good, coulda-shoulda happened type of story, now does it?
> [@](#):
>
> Last year at Thanksgiving, my mom went to my sister’s house for the
> traditional feast. Knowing how gullible my sister is, my mom decided
> to play a trick. She told my sister that she needed something from the
> store.
>
> When my sister left, my mom took the turkey out of the oven, removed
> the stuffing, stuffed a Cornish hen, and inserted it into the turkey,
> and re-stuffed the turkey. She then placed the bird back in the oven.
>
> When it was time for dinner, my sister pulled the turkey out of the
> oven and proceeded to remove the stuffing. When her serving spoon hit
> something, she reached in and pulled out the little bird.
>
> With a look of total shock on her face, my mother exclaimed,
> “Patricia, you’ve cooked a pregnant bird!”
>
> At the reality of this horrifying news, my sister started to cry. It
> took the family two hours to convince her that turkeys lay eggs!
>
> Yep…SHE’S BLONDE!
---
### Author:  [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)
#### Post date: [November 22, 2007, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thanksgiving-practical-joke-or-turducken-cover/427391/2 "2007-11-22T02:55:06Z")
I give this practical joke a score of 1.5/10 after a half-point penalty for the hair-color comment.
---
### Author:  [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)
#### Post date: [November 22, 2007, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thanksgiving-practical-joke-or-turducken-cover/427391/3 "2007-11-22T15:43:37Z")
Why is doing something nasty that makes someone cry for two hours called a ‘joke’?
---
### Author:  [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)
#### Post date: [November 22, 2007, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thanksgiving-practical-joke-or-turducken-cover/427391/4 "2007-11-22T16:22:37Z")
[QUOTE=glee]
Why is doing something nasty that makes someone cry for two hours called a ‘joke’?
[/QUOTE]
Oh please. How someone could cry for two hours over the idea that turkey was “pregnant” is just silly (and I assume exaggeration). Turkeys _can’t_ be pregnant. The very idea that an educated adult would temporarily believe it in the first place is hilarious; that it might take two hours to disabuse her of the notion, is clearly ridiculous (in the original sense of “if literally true, it is worthy of ridicule”). Especially when this sister was presumably the person who _stuffed the turkey in the first place_ – what, did this “fetal turkey” gestate while in the oven, and roasted at the same time??
My wife got me in a similar way while we were packing for our move. We’d seen evidence of mouse droppings in the back of one of our kitchen cabinets when clearing it out, and had talked about what kind of traps to put out (traditional “snap” traps, glue traps or “live” traps). One day she called to me while I was upstairs and said in a tone of great horror, “Oh, my God… Come see this… I don’t think those were MOUSE droppings after all…”
I came down and she s-l-o-w-l-y pushed the cabinet door open to show me a glimpse of… AN ENORMOUS, FOOT-LONG INSECT, LIKE A HUGE ROACH, EXCEPT THE BODY WAS LIKE OVER TWELVE INCHES LONG, AND THEN THE FEET STUCK OUT EVEN FURTHER, AND IT WAS TWITCHING ITS ANTENNAE, OH MY GAWDDDD…
(I have this “thing” about insects, you see, especially big ones.)
I jumped back about two feet, flung my arms up over my eyes, and cried out, “Oh, Dear God no! Aggh! Aaaaagggh!!”
Then she let me in on the fact that this was a large rubber Halloween prop that was still moving a bit from her having shaken the cabinet drawer before calling me down 😃
I wouldn’t say this was “nasty”, I’d say she got me but good. In fact now I more truly appreciate the work of HP Lovecraft. I had always wondered what he had in mind in relating the idea that there was some kind of horror, verging on madness, related to seeing something that was fundamentally unnatural to our world. The whole time I was convulsing with disgust, a small part of my mind was piping up, saying, _There is no way an insect could actually get that large physically, the physics of having an exoskeleton won’t permit it, unless maybe it looked more like a beetle than a cockroach, and then it’d probably be all but completely immobile_. But it was drowned out in waves of adrenaline and uncomprehending horror. Pretty cool, eh?
---
### Author:  [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)
#### Post date: [November 22, 2007, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thanksgiving-practical-joke-or-turducken-cover/427391/5 "2007-11-22T19:01:28Z")
The major problem here is that it’s not really funny. BTW, the judges have informed me that while jokes that are actually funny can avoid the half-point penalty for blatant sexism, this one does not qualify, so the new score is 1/10.
---
### Author:  [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2007, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thanksgiving-practical-joke-or-turducken-cover/427391/6 "2007-11-23T17:28:33Z")
Fetus thinks it’s not funny, I’m writing it down to do to my mother-in-law next year. So you’re probably actually closer to “average funny” than you think.
---
### Author:  [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2007, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thanksgiving-practical-joke-or-turducken-cover/427391/7 "2007-11-23T18:20:03Z")
As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could give birth.
I don’t know nuttin’ about birfing no turkeys.
---
### Author:  [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2007, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thanksgiving-practical-joke-or-turducken-cover/427391/8 "2007-11-23T22:32:35Z")
The French judge has informed me that a better bribe could’ve gotten you at least 4/10, OP.
The German judge says that if **Zeriel** ’s MIL actually falls for it next year, he’s willing to add 2-5 points depending on how much **Zeriel** ’s family lasts.
---
### Author:  [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2007, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thanksgiving-practical-joke-or-turducken-cover/427391/9 "2007-11-23T23:01:02Z")
[QUOTE=fetus]
The French judge has informed me that a better bribe could’ve gotten you at least 4/10, OP.
The German judge says that if **Zeriel** ’s MIL actually falls for it next year, he’s willing to add 2-5 points depending on how much **Zeriel** ’s family lasts.
[/QUOTE]
Hmm. Is that an (originally) East German judge? That would explain a lot 😉
---
### Author:  [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2007, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thanksgiving-practical-joke-or-turducken-cover/427391/10 "2007-11-24T00:41:49Z")
Yikes! How much **Zeriel** ’s family _laughs_!
And yes, he’s from Leipzig, and he’s not pleased that you asked.
---
### Author:  [@Runs\_With\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Runs_With_Scissors)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2007, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thanksgiving-practical-joke-or-turducken-cover/427391/11 "2007-11-24T04:23:18Z")
Woah, wait, wait, wait.
Jokes _lose_ points for sexism???
What else is funny?
---
### Author:  [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2007, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thanksgiving-practical-joke-or-turducken-cover/427391/12 "2007-11-24T05:37:42Z")
Like I said, they only lose points for sexism if they don’t qualify for the Humor Exemption. Basically, if the blatant sexism lends humor to the joke, which it wouldn’t have had otherwise, and it ends up being actually funny in the end, the half-point penalty does not apply.
---
### Author:  [@ThirdCultureKid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThirdCultureKid)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2007, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thanksgiving-practical-joke-or-turducken-cover/427391/13 "2007-11-24T20:53:29Z")
Hmm… I might have to do this for christmas this year. My family is of the kind that relishes the “upside down softboiled egg presented as a new egg”-joke, and since none of them will even for a moment believe it, I think it’s a winner 😃
---
### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2007, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thanksgiving-practical-joke-or-turducken-cover/427391/14 "2007-11-25T14:55:49Z")
OTOH - real life has stories with credulous participants as well.
This happened just 3 days ago, and I’ll tell it with no exaggeration.
My 17 yo niece was having Thanksgiving with us. She’s an honor student at a “good” suburban high school; the sort of school the real estate agents make a fuss over how wonderful it is.
She likes to cook & generally do the traditional girly-girl stuff. Wants to be a kindergarten teacher. I (male) am the chief cook here, so she’s helping me prep dinner by chopping potatoes & such. I’m giving her little cooking tips throughout, and she’s enjoying learning new stuff.
It’s time for me to prep the gravy, so I pull the giblets out of the fridge. I say “See, these are the turkey livers (we got two big, beautiful hunks), and this is the heart.”
She gets all dubious and says “The heart?”. “Yup”, I says, “When folks say ‘giblets’ this is what they mean. We chop them up, saute in a little butter, then add them to the gravy. Makes it goooood.”
Had I taken a moment to look at her face just then I’d have seen a horrified 5 year-old. But I didn’t.
So I took the heart between finger & thumb & started rhythmically squeezing it while making lub-dub lub-dub lub-dub sounds.
She shrieked, ran from the room, started crying & it took her older brother 30 miutes to get her to calm down enough to stop sobbing.
Up until that moment she didn’t know what giblets were, but “giblet gravy” was good. Now she’s terrified she’s ever eaten such a thing, and wanted to spend a few hours purging to maybe get the remnant’s from last year’s feast out of her. (One I didn’t cook.)
When I made the gravy I even split it into two portions & only added the horrid Giblets-From-Hell© to one half. She was unwilling to have gravy with her dinner “just in case”.
Kids. Not stupid, just ignorant. And a little high-strung in her case.
(And just in case you think I’m a mean shit who’s scarred her for life, I made a showy apology in front of everybody later & she gave me a hug & said it was OK.)
Never a dull moment with teens underfoot.
---
### Author:  [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2007, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-thanksgiving-practical-joke-or-turducken-cover/427391/15 "2007-11-25T22:21:28Z")
So, she’ll eat the flesh, gnaw the bones, and is apparently fine with gravy made from the liver of a chicken… But is sick at the idea of eating the heart? Seems like sooner or later Mr. Reality was going to issue a throwdown there…
If I’d seen the look on her face I’d probably have said something like, “Of course, if _eating_ the heart bothers you, we could always make a little altar out of toothpicks and sacrifice it to the Aztec god Itzachicken rather than let it go to waste.”