A woman who used to work adjacent to me left this job to live with her husband on a Christmas tree farm in Virginia. We talk occasionally on Facebook, but we see each other infrequently. So when she sent me this cryptic Facebook message – “Something fun headed your way!” – I really had no idea what it would be. And when I got to work today, sure enough there was an large box sitting next to my desk.
Now this woman’s father recently passed away so I thought maybe she found something cool while she was cleaning his house, like a vase or a painting or a book, but I was wrong. Dead wrong.* Her husband likes to hunt and he killed a enormous male wild turkey for Thanksgiving. So in the box are this big dead turkey’s wings, tail and back.
I was so happy. He had written a lovely note about how he was just going to get rid of the skin and feathers, but my former co-worker told him, “Hey, let’s mail this stuff to Jess, she’ll like it!” And I do. The feathers are really beautiful. It’s hard to see in the picture, but some of them are so iridescent they look like butterfly wings.
The only problem is the wings are completely intact, which means they are full of wing meat, which means they don’t smell great. Not atrocious, but not great. When I get home tonight I think I am going to pluck the wings and throw away anything that isn’t feathers. Before that I wanted to get a portrait of me with one of the wings intact. And here it is. I hope you can appreciate the joy on my face. DEAD THINGS FOR JESSICA ALWAYS.
*This will be funny later, the dead part.