Most families look forward to the month of November because it is the traditional time of getting together, giving thanks and gorging on mass quantities of turkey with all the trimmin’s.

Not my family. They’d rather skip Turkey Day. Not that they don’t like the turkey-gorging part, because they can strip a 20-pound gobbler quick-as-a-wink. It’s the annual turkey jokes that I cook up for them each year that seems to cause major indigestion with the Jenkins clan.

For as far back as I can remember, turkey jokes have been a tradition in our house on the last Thursday of each November. With the studiousness of a doctoral candidate, I have clipped, saved and cataloged every joke, gag, wisecrack and one-liner that has anything to do with turkeys and Thanksgiving stuff. Then on the anointed day, at the appointed hour – usually just after we’ve all been called to the table and just before the blessing – I get out my 3-by-5 cards and lay it on ’ em.

For example:

• So, why is a turkey called a turkey? When something’s that ugly, what else you gonna call it?

• Did you hear about the turkey they crossed with a centipede? Everybody gets a drumstick.

• Somebody invented a turkey with four legs … but they never could catch it.

• Inflation hits the turkey market: you pay an arm-and-a-leg for a wing-and-a-leg.

At this point everybody’s groaning, and it’s not because they’re hungry. They used to finish the punch lines for me, but now days they just roll their eyes and shake their heads. The Missus tries to shut me up, but I fix her with an old standby:

Hey, you know what my lady makes for Thanksgiving dinner? Reservations. (One of the kids drums a rimshot on the gravy bowl: ba-boom.)

Usually, we go to my brother and sister-in-law’s house for T-Day. She puts on a grand spread, but anticipates me every year when I ask: “And what may I bring?” She dryly replies, “The corn, like every year.”

So, I’m thankful the family tolerates my brand of humor. I even think they’d be disappointed if I didn’t trot out the turkey jokes. But, if there’s anybody who has nothing to be thankful for it’s the turkey: first he gets it in the neck … then he loses his head … they tear off his legs … knock the stuffing out … and then the whole family picks on him for days.

Joe Jenkins is an Auburn resident who

enjoys speaking and writing about

humorous subjects. Reach him at

jenkinsj@nventure.com