I have a perfectly good reservation tomorrow at M. Wells, a more than good restaurant. An excellent restaurant. And yet.
I walked over the bridge to Brooklyn and started feeling up the turkeys at Key Food. The ones in front were frozen. “HEY!!” I started looking for people with a name tag. “These are frozen over here. That’s not right to sell people frozen turkeys the day before Thanksgiving. It is 3 o’clock. That is not going to defrost for dinner.”
I don’t need a name tag. It is obvious who I am.
They have excellent customer management at Key Food.
The guy didn’t even lift a lip at me. He was even friendly-ish.
“Unfrozen are right behind those.”
“Oh.”
“Do you tell people that?”
“Sure.”
“Okay.”
I waited around a minute in case anybody needed unsolicited help and then decided I needed to buy one for myself. Just a little one; an 8 pounder. How could I not roast a turkey for Thanksgiving. And braise a few artichokes with leeks; maybe serve that with a little Camembert. Got to have a cheese course. And potatoes. I already have the cranberry sauce.
I walked my friend Mary home from school and talked her into taking the first half of the turkey tomorrow when it comes out of the oven. She told me there was no way she was agreeing to that. But Mary is tired, and I am way better at arguing than she is. She had ordered a chicken.
No way.
I said, “Listen, you take the turkey for the first act, whole for dinner. Give me the leftovers on my way home from the restaurant. It doesn’t make any sense that I wait to give you the second half, just because you want the second half. I am eating my turkey out of the fridge. You need yours for dinner.”
“I don’t need it. I have chicken.”
“Freezing a chicken is easy. Open the freezer and throw it in.”
“That is ridiculous.”
“No, it’s not. It is logical. It is just a matter of who gets which half.”
Mary has excellent friend management. She agreed with me.
We both went home happy. I get to cook a turkey and she doesn’t have to.

Hearts and hands have a life of their own.