There was a wild turkey in the middle of the road. And this turkey, it seemed, was in no hurry to go anywhere.
Had it been the size of a normal turkey, I would have just honked, or gotten out of the car and shooed it away. But this was not a normal turkey. This was a ginormous turkey. This was a turkey on poultry steroids… switched at birth with an ostrich egg and raised to think it was a turkey. It was Turzilla.
And Turzilla was mean. As I inched my car forward, he bobbed his head, gobbled angrily at me and stood in defiance. Then he ran at my car and pecked at my bumper. When I tried to pull off to the side, he paced me.
Even though my car outweighed him by a couple thousand pounds or so, I didn’t want another roadkill notch on my belt, so I waited. And he waited. It was a car-turkey standoff.
While I idled, cursing the turkey and trying to figure out what to do, the woman who lived in the house next to this scene walked out to the curb. I rolled down my window.
“Is this your turkey?” I yelled to her in jest.
She laughed. “Isn’t that something?” she remarked. I wasn’t sure if she was commenting on the size of the uber-turkey or the fact that he had declared the middle of the street “Turkeytown,” and himself the king.
“He’s been here all day,” she continued.
“Well, I guess he has nothing better to do than play in traffic and bully large SUVs,” I said.
Since she was not stuck in a car behind the turkey behemoth, she felt free to stand and admire the giant fowl from afar. I, however, was not as appreciative. I was late for a doctor appointment, and I couldn’t figure out whether I should contact the ASPCA and have the turkey captured or call AAA and have the turkey towed. All I did know was that I was stuck in my car for 10 minutes behind this bird, and I was the one who was starting to feel like a turkey.
I pulled forward a little more aggressively and this time, the turkey raised up its wings and actually flew at my car. Honestly, I didn’t even know turkeys could fly. It didn’t fly high, or fast, or even gracefully, but the sight of a giant bird coming at my windshield was enough to have me throw the car into reverse and burn rubber back down the road.
Turzilla settled back into position in the middle of the street and went back to pecking at the blacktop. I picked up my cellphone and called my husband.
“I’m late for an appointment and I can’t get down the street because there is a giant killer turkey in the middle of the road,” I whined to him.
“Honey, have you been taking your meds?” he asked me.
“I’m serious,” I complained. “There is a huge wild turkey blocking the street and it won’t let me pass.”
“Aren’t you the one with the 4,000-pound SUV?” he inquired.
“Yes, but he has a mean peck,” I said.
“Well, clearly there is only one thing that will get him to move,” he said.
“What?”
“Roll down your window and tell him it’s Thanksgiving.”
Tracy Beckerman is the author of the Amazon Bestseller “Barking at the Moon: A Story of Life, Love, and Kibble,” available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble online! You can visit her at www.tracybeckerman.com.
