Charlie Eppes and the Deep Fried Turkey Part 2
This author is not responsible for the state of your keyboard/monitor after reading this story, so NO eating or drinking.
Millie and Amita laughed at the idea of tenured crab grass.
Alan sighed tragically. "I'm beginning to understand why you and your brother aren't in a rush to have children," he told Don. "They'll probably be just like you two."
Don shrugged. "Nobody could be as perfect as us," he said.
"Grandchildren are much more fun than children," Mildred said. "I should have had them first."
"Actually, the 'fun' part is creating the children," Larry observed.
Everybody gaped at him in surprise.
Larry blinked back at them innocently, as if he was too demure, diffident and downright metaphysical to have said what just came out of his mouth.
Then all eyes (except Megan's) shifted to Megan.
Megan decided to change the topic back to what they were talking about earlier, because deep frying turkey over crab grass was suddenly a topic she wanted everyone focused on. "So, what kind of oil is this?" she asked again.
"Peanut oil," Larry explained. "It has a high smoke point, so it is less likely to cause an explosion."
"Plus it does not have much taste, so it will not contaminate the turkey flavor," Charlie added.
"How do you determine the amount?" Amita asked. She studied the interior of the turkey fryer. "This doesn't have markings inside."
Larry shook his head. "It would be pointless," he said. "The actual amount depends on the size and weight of the turkey in question."
"As for how much," Charlie said. "Yesterday, we put the turkey in the deep fryer and filled it with water until the turkey was completely covered and we still had five inches of space below the top of the fryer."
"Then we measured the amount of water," Larry said. He gestured to the plastic jug. "And that's exactly how much oil that we have in there."
"What's the rope for?" Mildred asked. She started sipping on her second lovely beverage.
That's when Don noticed that Millie had brought out a jug of her own. He wasn't sure what was in it, but drinking it seemed like a good idea.
Charlie and Larry's faces were covered with the kind of grin that was normally associated with maniacs with a cellar full of trophy wives.
Don began to long for a simple serial murder to crop up to give him an excuse to leave. Come to think of it, maybe he had better go back to the office. He might have left his computer on or something.
"The rope is for the…" Charlie paused dramatically. "Turkey scaffold."
If Charlie was hoping for shock and the dropping of jaws, he got it.
"What?" Amita blurted.
Megan blinked at the two scientists. "A turkey scaffold? Are you kiddin' me?"
Don downed his first lovely beverage in one gulp without tasting it.
"A turkey (pause) scaffold?" Mildred repeated as if she couldn't believe her ears. "What in the name of engineering is a turkey scaffold?"
"We're not kidding," Charlie said smugly. "In fact, I've got a new, scientifically designed scaffold for this very purpose." He darted off toward the garage.
The others stood around in silence.
Larry continued to grin at them, daring them to ask him for enlightenment, but even the hardened agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation were unnerved by the evilness emanating from the blond cosmologist's grin.
They were further bewildered when Charlie reappeared lugging his turkey scaffold.
"That looks like a ladder to me," Megan observed.
"It is, at the moment, an ordinary ladder," Charlie confirmed. "But, in a few short minutes…"
"Or an hour or so," Larry muttered sotto voce.
This earned him a dirty look from Charlie.
"In spite of skepticism from the audience," Charlie said. "This ladder will be transformed into a turkey scaffold, otherwise known as a food safety net."
"How?" asked Mildred.
"Watch and observe," Charlie said smugly. "I actually learned this trick from an episode of "Good Eats" on Food Network."
"I love Alton Brown," Megan enthused.
Larry shot her a wounded look.
"I greatly admire Alton Brown's cooking skills and ingenuity," Megan amended.
Larry gave a satisfied nod. "First, let's start the fire, Charles," Larry suggested. "Then we can set up the scaffold while the oil warms up."
"Excellent suggestion, Lawrence," Charlie said approvingly.
They added the pre measured oil into the turkey fryer. Charlie fussed over the thermometer until it was settled to his satisfaction.
Then he lit the fire under the turkey fryer, being very careful not to burn himself.
He gave his audience a smug smile before going to work on the turkey scaffold.
The mathematician was not so smug after stringing the rope. It didn't take the few minutes that he had optimistically estimated. Fortunately, it also didn't take the hours that Larry had pessimistically estimated.
As they worked, Alan brought out lawn chairs and another jug of lovely beverage for the spectators.
"Don't you have a football game to watch?" Charlie asked with some asperity.
"Good point," Alan said. He returned to the house and came back a few minutes later with a portable, battery operated television set. He turned on the game, but he might as well have left the television off for all that anybody paid attention to the game.
"Oh, how cute," Amita said. She bent over to get a closer look at the television set.
"We got it when we went to a seminar on Maui time share condos," Mildred said. "We also got a gift certificate for the Black Angus steak house."
Don felt a tad appalled and he could see Charlie turn a tad green.
"You and Dad are going to get a time share condo?" Don asked. The mental image of his father and Charlie's boss sharing a condo was something Don was going to need a lot of lovely beverage to get rid of.
"We gave it some thought," his father admitted.
Charlie went even greener, but he said nothing. Instead, he turned all his attention to the turkey scaffold and completely tuned out the conversation.
In the end, it took Charlie and Larry thirty three minutes and twenty seven seconds to complete the arrangement. When they were finished, there was a cat's cradle of ropes and pulleys dangling from the ladder.
"So the purpose of this is what?" Alan asked.
"To lower the turkey gently into the boiling oil," Larry said. "We have taken every precaution; however, some element of risk remains."
Charlie nodded. "This way, instead of standing next to the oil when we lower the turkey into it and risk getting splashed with boiling oil in… um…" he looked at the ladies.
"A delicate region," Megan suggested.
"And destroying your hopes for children and Alan's hopes for grandchildren," Mildred added.
"Ow," Alan opined.
"We can lower the turkey from a safe distance in case anything goes wrong," Charlie said hurriedly.
Larry and Charlie maneuvered the contraption until it was standing over the deep fryer.
Larry tied the turkey to the rope and backed away.
Charlie began to lower the turkey slowly.
Larry started a running commentary. "Inch by inch, slowly the doomed fowl approached the boiling oil. 'Do you expect me to talk?' the turkey challenged. 'No, Mr. Meleagris Gallopavo,' sneered the mad mathematician. 'I expect you to FRY! Bwa ha ha!'"
Charlie made a mental note to cut Larry off from the lovely beverages much earlier in the day at the next party.
The spectators took their lovely beverages and their lawn chairs and moved back to give Charlie some room in case something went wrong.
Like Charlie losing his grip on the rope.
Followed by the turkey plunging into the turkey fryer. Fo a moment it looked like this wasn't going to affect the outcome.
Then the turkey came roaring out of the fryer like a dragon from its lair.
Boiling oil geysered out of the deep fryer, putting an end to the tenured crab grass, some innocently by-standing dandelions and Charlie's lovely beverage, which had been sitting on one of the steps of the turkey scaffolding.
There was a moment of shocked silence for the demise of the lovely beverage before Alan extinguished the spot fires that were burning in his lawn… Charlie's lawn.
"Well, that didn't work as planned," Megan said with considerable restraint.
Charlie and Larry were gazing after the disappeared turkey, evidently estimating its trajectory.
"You, too, will believe a turkey can fly," Don said. He laughed into his lovely beverage and almost choked himself.
"Where did it go?" Alan asked. He was looking up, one hand shading his eyes, the other still firmly wrapped around his glass.
"I think it landed on the roof," Charlie said.
"That was the terminus that my calculations returned, also, Charles," Larry concurred.
They got an extension ladder to retrieve the flying bird from the roof. Charlie and Alan climbed up while Larry and Don held the ladder. The three women sat in the lawn chairs and laughed themselves silly.
"David and Colby will never forgive themselves for missing this," Megan chortled.
Alan surveyed the damage to the roof. "You needed to re shingle, anyway," he told his younger son in tones that weren't comforting, nor were intended to be.
Charlie debated the best way to get the turkey off the roof. "Amita, bring the trash can around here, will you?" he called.
Amita stifled her amusement long enough to fetch the requested trash can.
Charlie made a few quick calculations and dropped the turkey. For once in his mathematical life, his numbers were off, possibly due to the injestion of lovely beverages.
The turkey narrowly missed braining Amita.
Fortunately Amita was fast enough (and still sober enough) to jump back and pull the trash barrel to where she had been standing just in time to catch the turkey and avoid a concussion.
"Um, sorry," Charlie called.
"I want a diamond circle necklace for Christmas," Amita called up at him.
Charlie blinked down at her. "Um, I thought you were Hindu."
"And you are Jewish and we don't normally celebrate Christmas, but you don't normally drop crispy fried turkeys on my head for Thanksgiving," Amita returned in a reasonable tone that strongly suggested that Charlie might wind up sleeping alone if he didn't comply with her wishes.
He decided that he had better get to the Zales sale first thing in the morning.
He meekly followed his father back down the ladder.
"So, what do we do for dinner?" Alan said.
"I still have reservations for eight o'clock at Black Angus," Mildred said. "I figured that we might want to go over for dessert."
"That should give us time to clean up," Amita said. "When did you make the reservations?"
"Last week," Mildred said. "Before Alan invited me over. Then when I heard that dinner was going to be an experiment, I decided not to cancel them."
"Good thinking," Don laughed. He gave Charlie a shove as soon as his brother's feet were on solid ground. "I'm driving. You're not."
"Why?" Charlie challenged.
"Because I am expecting you to get bombed out of your mind tonight," Don said. "You should see the size of the margaritas that Black Angus serves."
Charlie looked at his father and his boss getting very friendly with each other and decided that getting blotto might just be his new Thanksgiving tradition.
Charlie sighed. "I don't suppose that they have fried turkey on the menu."
Millie chucked him under the chin. "I doubt it. However, I do know a nice little bistro that makes the absolute best Monte Cristo sandwiches."
"I thought they were made with ham," Charlie said with a frown. He thought that maybe he would have to stop disliking this woman, scary as that thought was.
"They're made with both, actually," Alan said. "That sounds like a great idea, Millie. Maybe we should make that our new After-Thanksgiving tradition."
"You know, this deep fried turkey business has possibilities," Megan said thoughtfully. "First, we need to go someplace with a little more room than a backyard."
"One of the professors in mechanical engineering has a place out in the desert," Larry said.
"Perfect," Megan said. "We'll also need to check the zoning laws. After all, if we're going to indulge in dangerous activities, we need to know what the local laws are."
"Dangerous activities?" Don asked, pulling his nose out of his lovely beverage. "That sounds interesting." He thought it over. "What did you have in mind?"
Megan nodded. "See, we skip this crap with the brining and seasoning and drying the turkey and just get a couple of dozen frozen turkeys." She paused for breath. "Maybe a couple of deep fryers, too."
Don was getting into the spirit of Megan's imaginings. Or maybe he was getting into the spirits of his lovely beverage, the exact recipe of which he had never had the courage to inquire after.
"So instead of shooting at turkeys during our turkey shoot, we shoot with turkeys," Don chortled. He tilted his head. "What, exactly would we be shooting at?"
"We could set up targets," Millie said soberly. Or as soberly as she could one third of the way through her third lovely beverage.
"If we're out in the country, where shooting is legal, we could bring some shotguns," Larry added. "You know, the kind that they use for skeet shooting."
Don, Megan and Millie laughed.
"Wonderful!" Don said. "We could not only shoot WITH turkeys, we could shoot AT turkeys at the same time!"
Alan looked faintly alarmed. "Maybe using shotguns is going a bit too far," he said hesitantly.
Millie refreshed Alan's lovely beverage, as the Eppes patriarch was still sounding way too rational.
"I've got a better idea," Amita crowed. "Paintball guns! That way we can keep track of who shot what."
Alan looked marginally relieved. Or perhaps the lovely beverage was stronger than he had realized.
Don, Megan, Millie and Larry all laughed uproariously.
We could load them up with gravy instead of paint," Megan suggested to another round of amusement and lovely beverages.
"I need some Wild Turkey," Charlie sighed. He headed into the house to grab some bourbon. Clearly his lovely beverage had not put him on the same level as the others. It was time to some serious catching up.