The Non-Frozen Turkey

When we came to look at this house, it was totally empty except for three things. There was a dining room table and matching china hutch in the more formal living room, and a frozen turkey in the freezer. It turns out that the house owner was trying to sell the table and hutch, but wasn't having any luck so far in this endeavor. The turkey was just leftover from some past holiday meal, and I'm pretty sure she wasn't trying to sell that at all.

Imagine our surprise on the day that we got the keys to the house to discover that they had left the dining table and hutch for us - like a little (or big) housewarming gift. The turkey, however, was gone. I joked that I was disappointed in that, although the truth was that I would never have eaten it - I'm way too strangely picky about eating food that I haven't bought myself.

We got the keys on a Thursday, and it wasn't until Saturday night that we were able to start moving things in. On Sunday I began to notice this strange smell in the garage - a strange bad smell, actually. At first it just smelled like they had kept a kitty litter box in the hot, hot garage, but by Sunday night it began to smell more like something had died in the hot, hot garage.

On Monday, the smell was much worse, but it wasn't until mid morning that one of our helpful mover friends said, "You've got something foul in your trashcan."

Actually, it really turns out that we had something fowl in our trashcan. Jason opened it up and pulled out the previously frozen turkey, dressed only in its original wrapping and dripping its fetid juices everywhere. It turns out that the previous owners had simply thrown the turkey into the outside trashcan. In the 108 degree heat that we were having then, it probably took about 30 minutes to defrost, and then just starting heating up and became a fly-infested, rampant swarm of foul turkey bacteria.

It really smelled badly. All of our poor moving helpers were either gagging or covering their nose as Jason carried it out to the curb. He wrapped it in a couple of trash bags, but later Anne and I wrapped in four more just to try and block out the smell.

Later Jason took it away and placed it in an hidden, can-not-be-named dumpster location. But the smell still lingered for days, especially around the trash can and the trail to the curb.

I must say that as we kept moving load after load of our things in and out of that smell that eau-de-dead turkey has become the scent that I will forever associate with moving. I must also say that this is a little bit fitting, because you know that moving can't ever have a pleasant signature smell. Moving is just best left over and done with - and far, far, away.