The Friday After...
I wish I could make stuffing like Mom's, but I
just can't.
I thought I could, and tried it once when I was
bold enough to smuggle a small cardboard
container of lard into California. (The food
police have dogs trained to find that sort of
thing, but they can't be everywhere, so I got
away with it.) The stuffing wasn't anything like
Mom's. I even used white bread, but all I got was
something that looked like large curd cottage
cheese in an oil bath.
I had had visions of making the stuffing like Mom's,
especially the stuff that used to remain inside
the turkey. On Friday morning, another unindicted
co-conspirator and I would sneak downstairs and
try to open that Wizard refrigerator without
being betrayed by the CLACK made by the bank-vault
latch on that thing. We'd pull little handfuls of
it out (the stuffing on top of the sweetbread
area was the most desirable ) and try to eat it
slowly enough to savor it, but fast enough so the
other culprit didn't hog it all. After taking as
much as we thought we could get away with,
without somebody hollering about all the stuffing
being gone, we'd engage in the Annual Friday
Morning Theological Debate. |
"It's Friday...is this a mortal
sin?"
"Can't be...Mom doesn't put meat in the
stuffing, she puts the stuffing in the meat."
"Is a bird really meat? If it's not, we don't
have to go to confession tomorrow."
"Yeah, but what about the lard? That's meat."
"No. it isn't. If you ordered a pork
sandwich and just got bread with lard on it ,
would you think that was OK?"
"Well, no..."
"Doesn't the bible talk about fishes and
fowl? They talk about them separate from the meat
like sheep and goats. You know it's ok to eat
fish on Friday, so it should be OK to eat fowl..."
"Well, you don't see anybody in the parish
having a chicken dinner on Friday night , do you?
It MUST be a sin. We're going to go to hell
because of some stupid stuffing , and it's all
your fault, you made me do this!"
"I didn't make you do it! Did I grab you
hand and stick it in the turkey's butt? NO! You
did it all by yourself!" |
"I'm going to confession
tomorrow anyway. I hope I don't get Monsignor
Walter or Father John. They should hang signs on
the confessionals. Sometimes I go into Father Tom's,
and it's really Father John, and he tells me to
say the whole rosary about a jillion times."
"Well, OK, I'll go too, just to be safe..."
"If I get killed today and go to hell, it'll
be all your fault!"
"Sshhh!" Stairs creaked in a familiar
rhythm... "It's Mom. Close the door QUIETLY!"
"CLACK!!!"
(voice from the stairs) "What are you boys
doing in the refrigerator? You're not eating
turkey or stuffing, are you? Today's Friday, you
know, and..."
CHORUS : "No, Mom, honest, we were just
looking..."
Exit stage left, covering our mouths while
pretending we're yawning from getting up so early,
but really trying to contain the telltale
stuffing breath.
Editor |
