Debby, Get Your Wings Off My Man!

It was probably inevitable. I’m sure all women engaged in a marital union with a handsome silver-fox must face the day when someone tries to steal their man with compete disregard for his long-time companion and true love waiting at home. Those brazen hussies only want a slice of the fox and will stop at nothing to get him. Well, for me, that time has come, and I want the record to state that I am not going down without a fight. Debby the Horny Turkey is after my man and she will stop at nothing.

If you remember dear reader, I introduced you to Debby a few months back when she began a whorin’ in my yard with her squad of sassy hens, lookin’ for love with a tom named Tom Selleck Turkey. (ICYMI Here’s the tale) While Debby’s actions were classless at that time, culminating in Debby standing on my front step and screaming what I could only imagine was a love-call for Tom, I assumed Debby’s love was reserved to only those of the avian variety. It now appears I might have been mistaken. But the question is, did my husband know?

Months prior, upon hearing of Debby’s strange love cry my husband, the Turk, who was working across the driveway in his garage office at the time, chuckled and said, “Maybe she knock wrong door. I think she looking for me. You know…hot Turk…not turkey.” We all laughed it off as the lame dad joke it was and we didn’t see Debby around again. Logic and Google said she was incubating her young ‘uns next to the cranberry bogs behind our house for the next several weeks. I assumed as a new mother, Debby would make good choices and this chapter was closed. But then, she started showing up again.

I began to get suspicious a few weeks ago when we took a family trip out on the Cape for lunch. We stopped at a Cape Cod visitors’ center for a quick bathroom stop and off in the distance, Nugget saw her lurking behind a public restroom in the woods. “Look guyth, Debby followed uth. That crazy Debby.” It’s been a running joke with my lisping sidekick since this madness began. Whenever he sees a lone turkey in the wild, he’s sure it’s Debby. (PS – good thing her name isnt’ Shelia or Sally as lack of in-person speech therapy has been rough on this 8-year-old. – Damn you COVID.) 

A few hours later we saw her again by a roadside antique store just outside of Provincetown. Maybe Debby was lookin’ for love. Maybe she was hopin’ to find a great deal on some colonial era candlesticks or maybe…she was following her man. Once again as we passed by comments were made and jokes flew but I looked her right in her beady eyes and I knew. A woman knows when another hen is stalkin’ her man.

The next morning, I was lounging in bed when I was jolted into reality with a series of urgent text messages.

“She here!” Pinged the first one which was immediately followed by a series of photos showing Debby the Horny Turkey pacing in front of a pair of massive doors…the doors to my husband’s office. No, not his garage office of COVID times…his real office. My husband’s actual office is about 35 miles from our house…in the middle of downtown Boston. 

Sensing the potential for a whole Fatal Attraction moment, I rushed my reply. “RUN!”

My mind was flush with visions of Debby hiding a meat cleaver under her wing. Debby’s Amazonian by turkey standards. She’s a big girl that stands as tall as a kindergartener. I worried that just as my poor husband lunged towards the door to gain entry, Debby would offer up a jihad level gobble before plunging the meat cleaver into his handsome chest. I’d be a widow. My children would be fatherless. Debby would face the ultimate punishment of becoming a turkey burger. I jammed my fingers at the phone keys trying to get the Turk on the horn when he called from the safety of his office. 

“Security guy rush her off.” He explained.

“Did she stab him?” I pressed. If Debby was as deranged as I feared, everyone was in danger.

“Stab him? Are you ask did the turkey pull a knife on security guy? Where the turkey get a knife?”

I’d said too much. It’s always dangerous to let my husband know what really happens inside my deranged brain. “Nevermind. I was just kidding. Watch out for her on the train though.”

When the boys woke up, I shared the latest Debby story. Number 1, the logical teen that he is offered, “It’s a random turkey Mom. You need to chill.” 

But my darling baby boy however was right there with me. “I know what happened. Debby probably locked her wingth under the bottom of the train and rode all the way to work with Baba.” He lay on the floor, arms crossed over his chest to offer a full visual. “When he got off, theeee followed him. That bitch ith crazy.”  (This child has the brain of his father and the crazy of his mother. He’s utterly terrifying.)

Debby laid low for a week but today, following one of our weekly beach days, troubling video appeared on the local news. My friend sent me a link from a Boston CBS affiliate that read, “Wild Turkey Spotted Roaming Streets of Downtown Boston.” (Hand to God this is true!) I nearly crapped my pants. My friend has also been following this Debby saga since spring and finds great joy in my madness. She immediately commented – “OMG IT’S DEBBY!” 

I forwarded the link and the Turk confirmed. She’d been right there in front of his office again this morning…waiting. Only this time some crazy news team caught it.

I can’t wait to tune in to the evening news tonight and see what she has to say for herself. I’m assuming there will be a whole ‘on the street’ interview with the rogue bird and I hope she comes clean about her intentions. I’m expecting Debby to confess to WHDH that she’s madly in love with a Turk from the South Shore and she’s been causing mayhem and traffic upheaval in downtown Boston just to get a look at his sexy self. All I can say is dream on Debby. He’s my man and I’ve got 2 feet and 150+ pounds on your feathery ass and I have no quandary about serving you up for Thanksgiving 2021. Game on bird. 

Sitting in Post-op Purgatory With Tom Petty

Somewhere around 4^th grade I discovered Tom Petty and have been in love with him ever since. Tom Petty is not only a handsome devil in that drug-dealing-ferris-wheel-running-carnival-worker kind of way, he is also my spirit guide. Long have Tom’s words come to me in times of need to give me a sense of well being. Back in the Turkey every time I’d successfully complete a solo trip to the bazaar, (A horror you will never fully understand until you’ve fought past vicious rotund women in floral headscarves and long coats for cheap eggplant and Hello Kitty undies in 150 degree heat.) the entire walk home I’d victoriously sing, “American Girl.” In our last home as we seemed to be a hotspot for the door-to-door sales of cable TV, roof repairs and numerous paths to Jesus, I always completed my hostile door slam with at least one verse of “Don’t Come Around Here No More.” No matter the situation, Tom provides the perfect soundtrack. This week, morning, noon and night my spirit guide Tom has been in my head, appropriately singing “The Waiting is the Hardest Part.”

Damn strait Tom, through everything with the Nugget the waiting really has been the hardest part. This week we hit a new height in waiting and even the wine isn’t helping this time. Let me catch you up to speed. Due to the reconstruction of his kidney and the swelling that would occur, a stent was placed to allow the kidney to drain through his side instead of the old fashioned way – though his little weinus. The plan was to cap the stent prior to us leaving the hospital, thus forcing the kidney to drain through his tiny man parts. Unfortunately, the Nugget’s kidney wasn’t interested in taking the natural path. Instead it backed up and made him hurl like a drunken frat boy post homecoming formal. The doctors uncapped it and thought waiting a few days would help. They tried again last Monday to cap it and this time the descent into hell was slower. No frat boy barfs but instead a slowly deteriorating Nugget and a kidney that was so swollen it was totally visible on the outside of his body within twenty-four hours. After uncapping it again and being drenched in a kidney juice tidal wave, (Gross right? Sharing is caring.) the Nugget was better and more waiting began.

With an uncorked Nugget in my lap, I anxiously awaited a return call from the doctor’s office with instructions as to our next step. As luck would have it, the nurse assigned to walk me though this “highly uncommon” situation, was Becky-it’s-my-first-day-on-the-job-as-a-urology-nurse. After waiting 4 hours, Becky finally called me at 5 to tell me the office was closed and she’d been unable to get in touch with the doctor who’d been in surgery all day so she’d call me back tomorrow. Before I could throw out my well refined, class A profanity, Becky, nearly in tears, disclosed that this was her first day and apologized for not knowing protocol better. She assured me it was safe to leave him uncorked and promised to call me back first thing the next day. Like a fool, I believed her.

At 10-freaking-30 the next morning, (Seriously Becky, in what world is that first thing? For the love of God Becky, I had time to panic-clean my entire house and even wash the rugs before your ass got around to calling me back.) she finally called with instructions on what we would be doing with my clogged up Nugget. Unfortunately, I’d had a full night to develop my crazy by Googling myself nuts and knew that the options we were facing were not pleasant, ranging from the surgical insertion of an internal stent, to a kidney transplant. We are nowhere near a transplant as he has one perfectly fine kidney that drains like it is maintained by the TidyBowl man, but by this stage in the game my continuing stress has ratcheted my crazy up to level hard-core and there is no longer any room for sanity here. Becky said the doctor was concerned but wanted to let it heal a bit more before making any decisions so we’d leave him uncorked until this coming Wednesday when the doctor would see him and assess the situation. Becky failed to note that part of assessing the situation involved an invasive test where dye is shot through the Nug as he is held down again for 45 minutes so the drainage process can be captured on film in a very gross Kodak moment. There is no way this isn’t going to be ugly. There will be kicking, screaming and lots of sweating and that’s not even taking into consideration the Nugget’s reaction.

So we’ve spent the past week waiting. With the exception of the drainage tube coming out his side, the Nugget is feeling great. He’s a different guy than he was before the surgery. He’s no longer puffy like a dude with a stuffed up kidney. His life-long surliness seems to have diminished because after two years, he finally just feels better. He’s back to patrolling the house in an Incredible Hulk mask and giant foam fist, stopping occasionally to inflict punishment in the form of a colossal fart to his brother’s head. What more could a mother ask for? If his damn kidney would work we’d be well on the road to recovery but instead we are languishing away here in post-op purgatory. We can’t celebrate what we’ve come through because it’s looking like it might not have worked and we can’t plan ahead because we have no idea what is coming. My return to gainful daytime employment remains a pipe dream and the prospect of me turning to late-night pole dancing work in a truck stop catering towards those who get a woody from cellulite dimpled thighs and C-section scars is beginning to grow uncomfortably close.

In the meantime, Tom keeps singing. Yes Tom, I agree, the waiting is the hardest part. Hopefully Tom has more faith in my sanity than I do at this point and I won’t start hearing verses of “Breakdown” before we get through Wednesday. I just desperately hope that we are not facing another surgery and in that exam room tomorrow I will hear the vocal styling of Mr. Petty singing “You Got Lucky, Baby.” If not, I will look that doctor in the eye and say, “Don’t Do Me Like That,” before taking a day or so to regroup so I can fight with my Nugget because, “I Won’t Back Down.” (See what I did there? I just gave you a whole Tom Petty medley. You will now most likely want to head over to YouTube to take a listen to my boy Tom and relive those good old days when rock stars looked like carnival workers, not middle schoolers (I’m talking to you boy bands.) You’re welcome.)