Unexpected Treasure

This turkey platter is legendary in my family.  We’ve pulled it out for Thanksgiving for the past forty-seven years.  It’s traveled to Florida, Ohio, Tennessee, and Georgia, and now resides in my sister’s cabinets.  We’ll be filling it up with sliced turkey in the next couple of hours, making fun of it, and telling its tale.  What tale?  Why, I’m glad you asked.

When I was very small (six or seven years old), my mother innocently took me along on a grocery shopping trip to the local Winn-Dixie.  It just so happened that the store was having a giveaway… a locked treasure chest filled with unmarked envelopes holding prizes, one of which happened to be a bicycle.  Each customer entering the store was given a small key that would hopefully open the chest.  If your key unlocked it, you got to select an envelope.

Lo and behold, I had a winning key!!!  You can imagine how excited I was – I could hardly contain myself, because I knew that bike was going to be mine.  I opened the chest, reached in, grabbed the lucky envelope and… Wait!  Oh No!…  A TURKEY PLATTER?… REALLY?  What child wants a turkey platter?

I’m told I cried (quite loudly and inconsolably) through the rest of the shopping excursion.  To calm me down until we could get home, Mom bought me a bag of Keebler Danish Wedding Cookies, which I chomped on between hiccups and sniffles.

To this day, I love those cookies… and I’ve come to love the turkey platter.