Happy Thanksgiving! This holiday is important to me for two reasons. One is that my mom always makes her green bean casserole (my all-time favorite food). But it also commemorates my very first publication. Last year I wrote my Thanksgiving-inspired short story called The Thanksgiving Dodo. I submitted it to Writegirl and they published it in their literary journal “Reflections”. I was beyond excited. The journal was even a finalist for the Firecracker Awards.

So today to celebrate the holiday I wanted to share my story!

The Thanksgiving Dodo

By Lili Lang

Okay, so I may have gone a little overboard. But hey at least it was for a good cause!  You see, my local church has this food giveaway thing every year on Thanksgiving where we all bring food to donate to the poor. Things like cornbread mix or stuffing. Well, this year my Grandma decided to buy like half a million turkeys to donate. Then like all true grandmothers she swindled her poor unsuspecting grandchild into free labor. Next thing I know I’m passing out turkeys at the front of the church. It wasn’t so bad though, actually, it was nice helping out others (Grandma’s bribe cookies weren’t bad either). Still looking back I should have just slammed the door in Grandma’s face. It would have saved us all a lot of trouble. 

Things were all fine and good till I got to the last of the turkeys. You see Grandma had told me to save one of the turkeys for our family dinner tonight. But I may have gotten a little overzealous. I was tired and it was getting late so I was trying to unload those turkeys as fast as possible. Well, I got my wish, before I knew it the turkeys were gone. All gone! Um oops.. I can’t go back to Grandma empty-handed, so I have two options. Go jump someone for the turkey I just gave them or go buy one. Considering this is a church and all, I guess I’m headed to the store.

 All I can say is if you see some old ladies in the supermarket watch out. I spied a turkey on one of the shelves but before I could even make a step for it ten grandmas beat me to the punch. And let me tell you it got ugly. It started out all nice and sweet but once they realized that was the last turkey the gloves came off. Dentures were flying, one shoe flew and conked a lady in the head. It looked like the lady with a rather sharp cane was going to win but then the store clerks came. Apparently, the women didn’t have the greatest eyesight and thought the clerks were more turkey competition. The poor chumps never stood a chance. Eventually, it turned into a tug-o’war. After a couple of heaves that little turkey just couldn’t take it. The thing tore to pieces. But if you feel sorry for the turkey you should have seen what they did to the woman who got the leg. They took her down NFL style. Well, that was my cue to leave. I was ready to go home at that point, But given my last “let’s call it” experience with those grandmas I wasn’t quite ready to face my own. So I went to try my luck at one more shop.

   I did get meat off the bird nature, it just wasn’t a turkey. Frankly, I’m not sure what I got. It kind of looks like a cross between a dodo bird and a pigeon. What, it was all the butcher had left! I would have settled for just a turkey leg but they didn’t even have that. Hopefully, I can convince Grandma it’s a turkey or maybe a mutant turkey…

    Okay, show time. I found grandma in the kitchen cooking away at something. Hm, I better soften her up a little before I break the news. My eyes roved around the kitchen and I saw some red stuff bubbling in a pot. Bingo! That smells delicious Grandma. I just love your cooking…. Uh oh, she looks suspicious, I may have thrown in a few too many “you’re such great a cook”. Okay here goes nothing. Um, you know how I was supposed to save a turkey well um I didn’t. There went my whole story about the mom and her three hungry kids that I gave the turkey to. Guess I’ll just have to stick to honesty. But I did go to another store and buy an er bird. Grandma barely raised an eyebrow and simply shrugged. Okay, we’ll have it tomorrow. Oh okay, I nodded, wait what! You see lately it’s just been turkey turkey turkey, I’m sick of it! So this Thanksgiving I’m making Italian food. Then she looked at my face and mistook my surprise for concern. Well, you did go all the way to the store so maybe we will have that today. No! I tore the bag away before she could look into it. Uh I mean Italian sounds great. She smiled and told me to set the table. With that, she bent down and pulled a mouth watering lasagna out of the oven. I smiled because truly I would take lasagna over mystery bird any day.

Here is a link to check out the literary journal https://linesandbreaks.org/issue-3-reflections/