So, the holidays are here. No denying that. I have accepted and mostly embraced this with the exception of the fact that I have not done any holiday shopping. The early bird gets the worm? The not-so-early bird gets the mouse, i suppose.
2 weeks ago, my sweet friend Tiff brought us some X-mas gifts and all the fixins for a X-mas dinner due to the fact that I was not sure how I was going to be able to afford anything for the holiday this year. Bless her heart. She is (once again) my angel. Well, I didn't have room in my freezer for the turkey so I put in the fridge and had planned to cook it last weekend for my birthday. Due to a chain of events I did not forsee (as always), this did not happen as planned.
The turkey thawed in the fridge for 4 days and has been there ever since. Today would be day 8 thawed - 12 total. After checking the internet, the general consensus was cook a turkey no more than 5 days after thawing in the fridge (9 including thaw time). Well, obviously the math on this one puts this turkey 3+ days overdue.
My psuedo mother in law (Sasha's grandma) is in town this weekend until Monday night. I had planned to cook an early Christmas dinner on Sunday with Grandma Johnson, JJ, Zehn, Sasha and I. Because I had the turkey in the fridge that needed to be cooked, this seemed like the opportune time to use it. However, I was slightly hesitant to cook it after so much time had gone by. I didn't want to send my mother in law home for christmas with food poisoning.
I mindlessly pulled the turkey out of the fridge to smell it (as the all knowing internet suggested). I couldn't get a good enough smell through the bag, so stupidly I sliced the bag open with the knife. Simultaneously as I sliced the bag, I realized that regardless of the smell, I was not going to be able to put this turkey back into the fridge once it had been opened.
So, I wrestled with the decision to soak the turkey in brine water overnight and cook an early christmas dinner on saturday or just cook the turkey tonight. After realizing that I may be cooking a poison turkey either way, I decided just to cook it tonight and gamble on poisoning 2 of us rather than 5 of us.
I started preparing the turkey by pulling the skin back (very gross) and rubbing butter under the skin. As I was preparing the turkey, I saw something run across the kitchen floor out of the corner of my eyes. I immedieately stopped what I was doing, wiped the butter on my pants (so rachel ray), crawled on the kitchen table, and screamed for Zehn... (the man of the house).
We discussed the possibility of a mouse behind the oven and what to do. Poor Zehn, who was more scared than I, but felt it was his manly duty to take care of it, suggested we leave a trail of cheese from the oven to the back door to entice the mouse out of the house. He also announced that if the cheese didn't work, we would move on to marshmallows because no mouse can resist a marshmallow. He is very anti-killing. Even if it is a disease infested rodent, so his solution was to lead it out of the house.
I scaled the wall from the kitchen table and moved to a different room to let Zehn perform his magic. When I came back to the kitchen a short while later, one of the cheese pieces closest to the stove was missing. We decided this meant the mouse had left the house (hahahahaha) and went on with our night.
Not really thinking (DUH!!!) I turned on the oven to cook the turkey...... (mind you, we were now cooking a possible poison turkey). About 20 minutes into it, Zehn walked into the kitchen and immediately started gagging. Between choking on his gags he asked me what the horrible smell was. Now, I am aware that my kids aren't always racing to the dinner table to devour my cooking, but this was a totally different response than I had ever seen from him. I entered the kitchen and was slapped with the sicking smell of death.
Was the turkey really this poison? I opened the oven to smell and was welcomed with a mouth watering very delicious aroma. Whatever the smell of death was, was not coming from inside the oven. Then I remembered.......... the MOUSE!!!! We had never actually seen it exit from behind the stove.
GROSSSSSSSS!!!!!!
The moment I realized what the smell was, I literally almost threw up in my mouth. Along with our (possible poison) turkey, we were now cooking a mouse. I called my mom in a panic. Wondering what to do...... She (so wise as always :) ) advised me to turn off the oven, throw the turkey away and order pizza.
So, that's what we did. Thank you Papa John's for providing us with the perfect dinner minus the mouse droppings or poison salmonella. We love you and are thankful for the greasy calories that will make it difficult to fit into that perfect christmas dress.
After all said and done, I have decided I would much rather clean up a crispy mouse from behind the oven than a fresh squished mouse in a mouse trap. So there you go..... that is today's lemonade. Tomorrow I will deal with our "well done" delicasy that found it's final resting place under the stove.
R.I.P MR. Mouse. I hope your buddies got the picture.
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