Wads of Cash in the Creek

Think of the thriftiest person you know. No, it's not the person of whom you are thinking, it's ME (or, it is I for all you grammar cops out there). My wardrobe is at least one third "vintage," and I only buy what I call "authentic retail" when it is on a very, very good sale, usually when things are under ten dollars. I ask for my money back at the end of movies that have any glitches in the sound or picture. I own a 500 dollar leather seven-seater sofa and a twenty dollar dining table with several free chairs. I am unabashedly frugal, some would say cheap; so when it was time to buy a turkey for thanksgiving, I was appropriately appalled to shuck out 30 dollars for a seven and a half pound turkey. I would have gladly paid ten dollars, but paying thirty nearly gave me hives.

Aussies seem to earn and allocate money very differently than Americans, so comparing prices on things is mostly a useless endeavor. I have been in Australia for ten months, already, so I would think that some of the sticker shock should be wearing off by now, and it is, except when I look at real estate or turkeys. The prices of houses and delicious birds for baking are just astronomical! I haven't bought a house, so I can't legitimately complain about housing, but the very cheapest turkey ( I checked around) set me back thirty dollars. How is that possible?

I was cycling today with Micah Jade in the trailer to get the girls from school when a brilliant stroke of cheapness hit me. In the creek, there are plenty of wild bush turkeys. Sure they look like over-grown flightless buzzards, but the real questions I began to ask are, "How do they taste and would anyone miss one?" As I peddled along the Kedron Brook, I wrestled with all sorts of great ideas surrounding the acquisition of the turkeys I see every day.

Perhaps I could come down at dawn with a tennis racket and a black trash bag on my bike. There would be very few people around, so maybe I can just whack one and then wrestle it into a bag to bike it back up to my house in my bike basket. Wouldn't the feathers make a great centerpiece? I wonder how much meat is under all those feathers? Oh! Reality check--We have no tennis racket. Would Greg's golf club work? If so, which iron? Surely Greg wouldn't miss one club for an hour in the morning.

Or, if that didn't work, maybe I could set a loop trap like Bear Gryllis does on Man Vs Wild. I've probably watched that show enough to figure it out. Then I will wait in the creek over night until I hear the tasty turkey struggling. Would a turkey fit in one of my shopping bags? Would anyone see me? Would it make much noise? Should I bring a shovel to knock it out? Even if I get away with it, would my children tell all my friends at school? Are any of my friends environmental activists?

What about at dusk? Maybe one attacks me and then I have to respond in self-defense. No one could blame an innocent jogger for killing a turkey that attacked her, surely. And if it was already dead, wouldn't it be more sanitary for me to take it home to be disposed of properly, instead of leave it near the bike path? I would merely be doing society a service by taking a delicious dead animal out of a public place (and into my oven).

In real life, of course, none of these bizarre ideas actually fly (yes, I do recognize that my turkey fantasies are odd at best). I couldn't really stomach hacking at a turkey with Greg's golf club, or strangling it like a special forces soldier with my shoe lace, or acting out the whole self-defence thing (I am enough drama without making up lies about wildlife). I guess I am destined to buy thirty-dollar frozen turkeys for as long as I live in Australia, but I think I will always look at bush turkeys differently from now on. Before my shocking experience in the freezer section, I saw bush turkeys as merely a beautiful native bird, but now those bush turkeys will henceforth appear to me as great, big wads of cash strutting in the creek, (probably) tasty, but just a little bit out of my realm of possibility.