Thanksgiving always makes me think of mama. After all, she was an important element in my life. By the time they finished stuffing her full of food, apparently it was time to stuff her with something else, and then eat her. Strange how human beings behave isn't it? Mama was born on a farm two miles from here. She was a strong, intelligent bird with very little to say for herself, but boy could she eat. Whatever they gave her, she ate. I remember thinking as she waddled through the farmyard that there was something less than elegant about being a fat turkey.

They don't do Weight Watchers for turkeys, though they should. Every year, we see advertisements telling people to lose weight, and then nothing gets done to help us poor birds. In fact, reverse psychology seems to be applied in an effort to make us as fat as they are. These strange "round" people want their birds well rounded too. You would think, with all the health warnings they would be aware that fatness ends in disaster, though something seems to have gone terribly wrong. Once a year at Thanksgiving, all the people get together to eat themselves silly.

I was determined not to go the way mama went. By the time her time came, she could hardly walk. Papa loved her for all of that, and we had something to be thankful for on Thanksgiving day while we were all younger and leaner, though as we grew something changed in our attitudes. Thanksgiving Day brought the disappearance of so many friends. One day, here we were in a farmyard full of friends and the next, it was like living in a ghost town.

When mama disappeared with the crowds, we thought about it for a while and it was only when the bones got put out in the garbage that we realized she was really gone, and the people looked fatter. I devised a plan to get away from this transient life of disappearing friends, and refused to eat. Somehow, the round people didn't like that much, and on the day of great adoptions when people pull up in SUVs and choose their turkey, no-one chose me.

It's a funny life really, though this Thanksgiving I have something to be thankful for. I am thankful for the skinny guy with spots who came and took me away from this yard where friends disappear so often. I missed the sound of the morning call from the barnyard, though I can't say I am sorry about leaving the farmyard where mama and papa brought me into the world and taught me all the things I needed to do to survive.

"Eat your dinner," mama would fuss.

"Eat your dinner, or you won't get big and strong."

I had seen big and strong and where it got you in life. With any luck you ended up stuffed and if you got too big, they even sawed one of your legs off to get you into that oven. Not a hope in hell I was ever going to join that fad. I am thankful this year because I listened to mama and learned from all the mistakes her mama showed her.

While people sit down to Thanksgiving dinner this year, the spotty man will come out into the yard and talk to me as he did last year and the year before. I don't mind that he feeds me his wife's experimental cooking or that I get homemade bread crumbs which taste of wheat germ. I don't even mind that I am growing as skinny as he is. I don't even mind if I never see a "round" person again. They don't tend to eat here. This is where I ended up, and I really am thankful. There's an upside to living with a vegetarian after all !

Learn more about this author, Rachelle de Bretagne.
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