Preparing for the Thanksgiving Dinner Parade

Our closest grocery store is one of those very nice places that even has its own store magazine with helpful tips and explanations about how they found the best pickles in a small village in Poland. Or maybe it was Fresno. It is just a way to assure us that we are getting better food than at--Sniff!--the Big Box with lower prices.

It is July--late July--and the newest magazine is on the rack, with a cover story about The Well-Planned Thanksgiving Dinner.

Huh?

Even Macy's Christmas Parade does not happen until almost Thanksgiving: that's about a month early. But, Good Grief!, this is late July! August, September, October, November: four months from now! The turkey hasn't even hatched yet! Are we supposed to buy turkey eggs and hatch them?

I will wager that there is a form in the magazine for ordering the bird now. Do you want a left-handed, or a right-handed, bird? Should your cranberries come from a bog in . . . where do cranberries come from?

In its own way, it is a comfort to know that someone is thinking about our welfare. The political process is going to hell in a handbasket, tiptoeing around fiscal disaster, but Byerly's is suggesting that we can use the basket for a turkey we may not be able to afford.

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