How to Carve a Turkey

1. Cut open the thigh and make sure the juice runs clear. If not, continue baking or roasting until juice will run clear in the other leg. If you run out of legs to test, you do not necessarily need a new turkey.

2.Cut off the wings and drumsticks to prevent escape. Take out the gizzards, too, for much the same reason--the idea is to take away the turkey's options, I guess.

3. Enter the knife into the turkey near the spine and cut a slice downwards until the blade is between the leg and wing. Do this until all meat is gone, except what you want to pick at later. This will come to be called the "breast meat," even though turkeys don't have breasts, and, if they did, probably wouldn't have them on their backs.

4. Ponder whether drum-sticks were designed to look like--or, indeed, were made out of--birds' legs; or if the similarity was noted later.

5. Try futilely to cut thigh meat away in a coherent fashion (put most of the little pieces in your mouth, even though it's all little pieces). Give up. Vow to return for a second attempt when Aunt Edna finishes her fascinating story about the pubic cysts she just had removed.

6. Remove neck and put into fridge for later making into soup. Vow to do same to Aunt Edna if she doesn't shut up about the fucking cysts.

7. Put all slices on a plate in coherent fashion. Place pan-drippings in a small, porcelain toureen.

8. In light of Aunt Edna's refusal to take any hint at all, contemplate the oneness of all things: here you are carving a turkey--and yet, as you grit your teeth ever more tightly, you realize you and the turkey are both "on knife's edge." Allow a tear to roll down your cheek; vow to be more compassionate.

9. Stab Aunt Edna.