TumbleDweeeb

Mad Mechanics: Gobble ‘Til You Wobble
Written by: Emmitt Owens
As narrated by: Waylon
Episode: #17
(Index# 11252025)

Mad Mechanics —
Holiday Special Episode: Gobble ’Til You Wobble
A Buzzard Roost Thanksgiving Catastrophe

Waylon, Intro: “If you’ve never spent Thanksgiving in Buzzard Roost, Alabama, let me save you the trouble of pretending it’s normal. Other towns got quiet prayers over polite casseroles. We got Chester saying grace over a 55-gallon drum of boiling mystery oil, Gutglor sipping ‘Turkey Pot Pie’ out of a mason jar, and Reedus zip-tying a snowmobile engine to a shopping cart and calling it culinary innovation. This year was worse, though. This year, somebody let the church committee say the words: ‘Let the Mad Mechanics handle the turkey.’ In their defense, they was picturing a couple of oven birds and maybe a bit of carving. In our defense, they shoulda known better.”

THE GREAT BUZZARD ROOST THANKSGIVING PLAN
   On th’mornin’ of Thanksgiving, them rain clouds were hanging low and slow over Buzzard Roost like they was bored of Fall. Out back of the shop, Chester had th’hood up on a 83′ Ford F-150 and a 28-pound Pilgrim’s Pride turkey sitting on the workbench beside a timing light and a carburetor rebuild kit.
   The bird was still half-frozen solid.
   Chester shrugged, wiped his hands on his jeans, and looked from the bird to the engine like they was related.
   “Preacher said we needed enough turkey to feed the whole VFW hall and half the county,” he said. “So I got the biggest one Piggly Wiggly had and stuck it in the shop fridge last night.”
   “That fridge ain’t worked right since Gary tried to beer-batter Popsicles in the freezer,” Reedus reminded him from across the engine bay.
   “Details,” Chester waved off. “We’ll drop it in the fryer. Oil don’t care about feelings, only surface area.”
   He hooked a thumb toward the shop and started walking, scooping up the 28-pound Pilgrim’s Pride turkey off the engine bay as he went. The others fell in behind him, boots scuffing gravel as they headed back toward the front of the shop.
   From the old shop radio balanced on a stack of truck tires and a few No Trespassing signs, Bill Withers was singing about a lovely day. The timing felt optimistic, maybe dangerously so.
   On cue, Gary pushed through the garage door carrying a box of cheap paper plates and a banner that said:

GOBBLE ‘TIL YOU WOBBLE: BUZZARD ROOST COMMUNITY FEED — SPONSORED BY MAD MECHANICS

   There was also a hand-drawn chicken on it.
     “Turkey,” Reedus said. “That ain’t a turkey.”
   “Had a reference pic of a chicken on my phone,” Gary said, cigarette dangling from his lips. “Just imagine it’s more patriotic.”
   Behind him, Reedus came clanking through with a dolly loaded with trouble: one dented 55-gallon drum, an old nitrous oxide bottle, and something that looked suspiciously like an Husqvarna leaf blower with parts missing.
   He had that look on his face — the one where his eyes light up like somebody just handed him a innovative idea and a legal waiver.
   “Boys, boys, boys,” he grinned, “you are lookin’ at the future of high-performance poultry.”
   Chester’s eyes narrowed. “Reedus. Why’s there a nitrous bottle on my concrete?”
   “Because,” Reedus said, drawing it out like a magic trick host, “we are not just deep-frying. We are boost-frying. Nitrous-assisted, convection-enhanced turkey immersion, with a snowmobile-powered circulation system so the heat curve stays laminar and—”
   Professor Thibodaux stepped out of the office right about then, wiping his glasses on his shirt. He squinted at the assembly like he was trying to decide if it was more illegal than it was stupid.
   “Son,” he said slowly to Reedus, “that there is a forty-five gallon oil drum, an ethanol-based accelerant, a nitrous bottle, and a leaf blower. You done built a hillbilly Saturn V rocket with a poultry payload.”
   “So…” Reedus said, “you like it?”
   The Professor sighed, deep and long, like a man who’d taught physics and now taught regret.
   “They used to unveil cars around Thanksgiving,” he grumbled, watching Reedus weld mounting brackets. “Whole families put on suits just to go stare at chrome. Now look at us—launching poultry instead of progress.”
   He adjusted his glasses. “I like that I updated my will last week,” he said. “But if we gon’ do this, we at least gon’ do it somewhere the fire department can see it comin’.”
   That’s when they heard the sputter and wheeze of something dying on Highway 13.
   A rusty 1978 Ford LTD wagon with faux wood paneling coasted into the lot like it was exhaling its last breath. The thing was held together by hope, Bondo, and decorative rust — plus a handful of faded ’90s decals from the one summer it identified as a lowrider.
    Gary squinted at the stickers, cigarette bobbing. “Somebody tried to make this thing Fast & the Frugal,” he said.
   Reedus nodded, dead serious. “Looks like they got a bulk pack of stickers and too much confidence.”
   Chester tapped one of the peeling decals — a cartoon chili pepper wearing sunglasses. “Son, this car had a personality crisis halfway through a grocery store parking lot.”
   That’s when a harried-looking woman climbed out, three kids spilling behind her like puppies.
   “Please tell me somebody here can fix cars,” she said.
   Chester looked up from the turkey, then at the wagon, then back at the turkey. “What’s wrong with her?”
   “Died about a mile back. We’re supposed to be at my mama’s in Spruce Pine by two.”
   Gary walked around the wagon, cigarette smoke trailing. He popped the hood and peered in like he was reading tea leaves.
   “Fuel filter’s clogged tighter than a church pew on Easter. And your serpentine belt’s got about fifteen minutes left before it becomes confetti.”
   “Can you fix it?”
   Chester wiped his hands. “Sure can. Get y’all to Grandma’s by dinner, promise.” He glanced back at the turkey on the workbench. “Just gotta handle one thing first.”

Waylon’s Intermission: “Now folks, before we go any further, I need to pause and tell you that when a man promises to fix a car ‘right after’ he deep-fries a turkey in a nitrous-enhanced oil drum, you are witnessing the exact moment good intentions and terrible priorities have a head-on collision.”

   The church committee had already reserved the VFW parking lot for the community feed, but somehow — and by “somehow,” the boys meant Gary — they’d also got the Chill n’Fill involved.
   See, Gary had cousins up in Mesick, Michigan — tiny town, big heart — and one of ’em was married to Bob, the big fella that owns the legendary Chill n’Fill gas station right across the street. Y’know, the one with the twenty-foot winking polar bear out front and the shop radio that only tunes to 96.6 WDAR — Dead Air Radio when the spirits are feelin’ playful.
   Gary had convinced them that “Thanksgiving synergy” was a real thing, so around eleven a.m. the Chevy Transit van from Chill n’Fill hopped the curb, crossed the street, and bounced into the Mad Mechanics lot like it was evacuating a crime scene — WE GOT GAS & ATTITUDE spray-painted on the side, gravel popping like firecrackers under the tires.
   Bob leaned out the window and shouted,
     “Parking lot collaboration! Gary said y’all needed pies and supervision!”
   Out hopped Cindy — petite, messy bun, hoodie that read “Chill n’Fill Midnight Crew” — carrying a pan of sweet potato casserole like it was a live explosive. Behind her lumbered Bob, big as a fridge and twice as solid, wearing a T-shirt with a winking polar bear in a pilgrim hat that read: “GOBBLE N’ PUMP”.
   There was also a cardboard standee of the same polar bear in the back of the van, which Gary immediately claimed for “branding reasons.”
    “Ya’ll really carried that bear across the street?” Reedus asked, taking a stack of pie boxes from Bob. “He ain’t exactly a travel-size mascot.”
   Bob shrugged. “Cindy said the event needed better branding.”
     Cindy grinned. “If nobody dies, this is at least three TikToks and a limited-run T-shirt.”
   Behind them, the little radio Cindy carried — one of those old plastic jobbies with silver knobs — crackled to life all on its own.
     “—and this is 96.6 W—D—A—R Dead Air Ray—dee—oh, where chickens ain’t turkeys and we ain’t jivin’,” a voice crooned. “Today’s broadcast: ‘Disaster Feast: Songs for When Your Turkey Fights Back.’ Brought to you by Cokehead, the creative’s addict.”
   The station picked its moments. That was not a good sign.
   Gary looked at the radio, then at Chester. “That station knows, don’t it?”
   “Station always knows,” Bob muttered.
     They loaded up the Turbo-Fry 3000, pies, and that poor cardboard polar bear into the trucks and caravanned over to the VFW hall — the official battlefield of Buzzard Roost Thanksgiving.
   Folding tables were already set up under the flagpole, the air thick with the smell of church-lady side dishes and cautious optimism. By noon, people started showing: church ladies with Tupperware, old vets in VFW caps, kids chasing each other between the tables, and a handful of Buzzard Roost regulars who’d heard the words “free food” and “explosive risk” in the same sentence and figured this was their kind of holiday entertainment.
   The Turkey Wagon sat on a flatbed in the background, hood open, fuel filter soaking in a coffee can. The family had settled into lawn chairs with sweet tea, watching the show like they’d bought tickets.
     Chester pulled the tarp off the main attraction.
   There it sat: One 55-gallon drum mounted in a chopped-down utility trailer, welds still smoking, a propane burner underneath, a snowmobile engine mounted to the side with duct tape and rivets, and a leaf blower clamped on top for “airflow.”
     Somebody had stenciled:
TURBO-FRY 3000
ABSOLUTELY … NOT OSHA APPROVED
   on the side in orange paint.
     Professor Thibodaux stood beside it with a clipboard like a man who had given up on being taken seriously.
     “Now,” he announced to the small crowd gathering, “under no circumstances will we be dropping frozen turkeys into this apparatus from any height, up to and including the tailgate of Chester’s wrecker.”
   Reedus, already halfway up on the wrecker bed with the turkey cradled like a baby, froze.
     “You said gravity assist,” he whispered down.
   “I said gravitational potential energy is a thing,” the Professor replied. “I did not say, ‘throw dead birds out a helicopter in flight like that radio station in Cincinnati.’”
   Gary leaned over to Cindy, cigarette smoke drifting between them. “We had a whole promo built, too. ‘Buzzard Roost Turkey Rain, sponsored by Chill n’Fill.’”
     Cindy shook her head. “You people are gonna get my logo subpoenaed.”
   Dead Air Radio crackled again.
     “Listeners, we remind you — turkeys do not fly. They do, however, fall with enthusiasm.”
   They say disasters don’t happen from one bad choice. It’s always the stack.
     Theirs looked like this:

Choice One: Chester didn’t wanna waste perfectly good peanut oil, so he’d bought three five-gallon buckets of “reclaimed fryer oil” from a guy whose food truck had been shut down by the health department.

Choice Two: Gutglor insisted that “a splash” of his strawberry muscadine moonshine in the oil would “add flavor” and “sterilize any leftover sins.”
   “Professor,” Gutglor argued, holding up the sticky mason jar like a trophy, “this ain’t regular shine — this here’s Tumbledweeeb™ Strawberry Muscadine —
filtered through real tumbleweeds.”
     The Professor stared at him over his glasses.
   “I’m sorry,” he said slowly, “which part of that sentence do you expect me to not be terrified of?”

Choice Three: Reedus had plumbed the leaf blower and the snowmobile engine together. When the engine fired, the leaf blower forced air down a duct into the drum, creating a “convection vortex.”

Choice Four: That nitrous bottle? He swore he’d only use a tiny squirt “to get the oil up to temp faster.”

   “Just to the first line,” he said, tapping the gauge with a wrench. “You know, like boostin’ a drag car. Same science, different meat.”
     Professor Thibodaux pinched the bridge of his nose. “You do understand that adding nitrous to a fuel-rich environment—”
   “Professor,” Reedus cut in, “you told me once that turkey’s just a constrained problem of fluid dynamics and heat transfer.”
     “I also told you not to drink gasoline out that race car,” the Professor said. “You only remember the fun parts.”
   Cindy was filming everything on her phone, narrating in a half-whisper.

“Live from Buzzard Roost, it’s what happens when you let men cook unsupervised,” she said. “Hashtag GobbleTilYouWobble, hashtag ThisIsHowWeDie.”

   Bob, for his part, had set up a folding table with pies, Chill n’Fill coffee thermoses, and a little cardboard sign that said: FREE PIE — LIABILITY NOT INCLUDED

Intermission, Waylon: “Now I need to interrupt this tale right here to remind you folks that when multiple grown men start arguing about the proper application of racing fuel technology to poultry preparation, you are no longer planning Thanksgiving dinner — you are planning a federal incident.”

   By one-thirty, the drum was almost full: twenty-odd gallons of oil, a generous pour of moonshine (“for luck,” Gutglor said), and the snowmobile engine coughing to life with a scream like an angry weed-whacker.
     The smell was… complicated. Like carnival food, gasoline, and a liquor store parking lot at 2 a.m.
   “Temp’s comin’ up,” Professor muttered, watching a meat thermometer taped to a broom handle. “Another fifty degrees and we can talk poultry.”
   Dead Air Radio slid into “Heat of the Moment” right as the temperature gauge climbed past three hundred degrees. Nobody caught the coincidence but the Professor, and he did not like it.
   Chester looked at the crowd — now fifty or sixty folks deep — and puffed out his chest.
     “All right, ya’ll,” he hollered. “In about fifteen minutes, we drop this bird, and then it’s Gobble ‘Til You Wobble time!”
   The church ladies clapped. The kids cheered. A couple of old vets moved their lawn chairs back three feet like they’d seen this movie before.
     Cindy panned to the Chill n’Fill polar bear standee, now duct-taped to a light pole and wearing the same paper pilgrim hat. The bear’s printed “Cheinco 1957” eye winked exactly as the snowmobile engine revved louder.
   “This bear did not sign up for this,” she muttered.
     Her phone buzzed. A text from Bob’s cousin back at the Chill n’Fill: “How bad is it?”
   She glanced at the setup, typed back: “Scale of 1–10? The turkey’s about to assault a polar bear.”
     Reedus, sweating, flipped his welding visor down and opened the nitrous valve a hair.
   The flame under the drum flared.
     The snowmobile engine snarled higher.
   The leaf blower howled.
     Dead Air Radio slid into “Burnin’ for You” right as Reedus cracked the nitrous valve wider.
   Professor Thibodaux’s thermometer shot past the “safe” line like it owed somebody money.
     “CUT IT OFF!” he hollered.
   And that’s when everything went sideways.
     Reedus spun the wrong valve.
   Instead of choking the propane, he cranked the leaf blower to full.
     The snowmobile engine took that as a compliment, coughed, and settled into an enraged scream. The blower forced a torrent of air down into the drum.
   The oil — now loaded with moonshine vapor and right on the edge of too hot — responded by turning into a violently rolling boil.
     “Reedus,” Chester yelled, “you’re makin’ a turkey jacuzzi, not a fryer!”
   The Professor’s eyes went wide. “EVERYBODY BACK!”
     Chester grabbed the turkey.
   That bird was still half-frozen, slick with melted ice, dripping water like it was sweating through a Southern summer church service.
     “NOW!” Reedus shouted. “DROP IT NOW BEFORE THE—”
   Chester heaved.
    The turkey hit the surface of that over-excited oil with the kind of impact of a meteorite.
     There was a split second where everything held its breath.
   Then the world turned white and loud.
     WHOOMPH.
   It wasn’t a bang so much as a deep bark, like the earth had coughed. A column of superheated vapor and oil exploded out of the drum, turning into a greasy geyser that filmed half the parking lot in turkey-scented mist.
     In the middle of that column, like some kind of tragic parade float, the turkey launched straight back up — a spinning, hissing comet of poultry.
   “Lord have mercy,” the Professor whispered. “We have built the world’s first turkey rocket.”

Waylon Intermission: “Now y’all — back on Thanksgiving weekend of 1963, Ford Motor Company unveiled a horse. Not just any horse — the first mechanical Mustang that kicked the American muscle car era into gear. And today… these boys unveiled America’s very first turkey-based missile system. America, baby!”

   The bird arced, spinning end over end, trailing a halo of burning oil droplets that looked like sparks.
     The turkey launched just as WDAR hard-cut to the opening guitar riff of a certain Southern rock anthem about a bird seeking freedom.
   “Oh come on,” Cindy yelled at the sky. “That’s too on the nose!”
     Dead Air, in a move that oughta qualify as supernatural, let the music play for exactly three seconds before the DJ cut in: “Listeners, we interrupt this broadcast to remind you: turkeys cannot fly. They can, however, achieve a brief but glorious hang time over the VFW.”
   People screamed. Kids hollered. The old vets sat up a little straighter. One of them actually applauded.
     “Seen worse in ’72,” an old veteran muttered, impressed.
   The turkey reached the top of its arc and began its descent — straight toward the Chill n’Fill polar bear.
     Cindy’s camera zoomed in involuntarily.
   “Oh no,” she breathed. “Not the mascot—”
     The bird hit the bear right in the cardboard snout, knocking the standee flat on its back in what could be described as an assassination by entrée.

Waylon Intermission: “Betty Crockers Third Law of Southern Cookin’: drop a frozen bird into rocket oil, and somewhere a cardboard polar bear gets smacked into next week. That’s just math we learned behind the Waffle House.”

   The crowd gasped.
     Then everybody started laughing at once.
   Even Bob.
     “He’s been through worse promotions,” Bob said, wiping tears. “Last Easter he took a propane egg to the chest.”
   If that had been the end of it, they coulda called the day a success: small explosion, no fatalities, one minor mascot casualty.
     But remember the stack of bad choices?
   While everybody’s eyes were on the fallen polar bear, the real show started at ground level.
     The nitrous-enhanced flame had licked up the oil on the outside of the drum. The oil on the inside was still boiling, trying to crawl out. The leaf blower, somehow still on, kept forcing super-heated air down into the mess.
   The result was what the Professor, later on, would refer to as a “grease-fueled rotational updraft event.”
     The boys called it the grease tornado.
   A sheet of flame rolled up around the drum like somebody’d dropped a match in a refinery puddle. The wind picked up — convenient timing, thanks, nature — and that flame coned out sideways, licking across the gravel and catching every loose droplet that turkey had shed on liftoff.
   Little fingers of fire started marching away, sniffin’ for more to eat. A mist of atomized oil hung in the air like a buffet.
     A panicked church guy near the flagpole cupped his hands and hollered, “Kids! Don’t chase the fire line past Slaughter Pen Rd — that’s how the devil gets ya!”
   A little boy yelled back, “But it’s goin’ toward the playground!”
     His dad — not even looking up from his plate — replied, “Then outrun it, son!”
   “Fire extinguishers!” Chester yelled.
     Gary grabbed one, pulled the pin, and promptly shot foam directly into Reedus’s face.
     “I GOT ‘IM!” Gary yelled.
   “I AIN’T ON FIRE, YOU IDIOT!” Reedus shouted back, spitting foam. “HIT THE DRUM!”
     Bob lumbered forward with a second extinguisher, Cindy right behind him, phone still recording.
     “Do not try this at your gas station,” she narrated. “I repeat: do not try this at your gas station or at your local VFW hall.”
   The Professor, to his credit, stepped into the edge of the heat and shut off the propane with one decisive twist. Gutglor, of all people, had the good sense to yank the nitrous line free.
     The snowmobile engine screamed its last breath and died.
   The leaf blower wheezed to a stop.
     For three long seconds, the drum just burned on residual fury.
   Then the foam hit, and the whole mess turned into a hissing, collapsing heap of wet, blackened metal and half-cooked turkey parts.
     Silence fell over the parking lot.
   Dead Air, after a beat, cued up “We Didn’t Start the Fire.”
     Somewhere in the back, Cindy started laughing. It spread like a cough in a quiet church.

Intermission, Waylon: “Y’all, I need to pause here and say that when you’ve successfully created a grease tornado in a VFW parking lot, you’ve entered a very specific category of human achievement that probably shouldn’t be celebrated but definitely needs to be documented.”

   The preacher elbowed his way through the crowd, face pale but trying hard to look pastoral.
     “Is… is everyone all right?” he asked.
   Chester patted his hair, now slicked into a “grease halo” that made him look like he was fixin’ to join a 1950s street gang… if that gang deep-fried Thanksgiving birds instead of drag-racing Chevys.
     “Think I got deep-fried eyebrows, but I’m good,” he said.
   A little kid piped up from the front. “Do it again!”
     “No,” the entire adult population answered in chorus.
   Professor Thibodaux peered into the drum, now half-full of foam, moonshine, and what might’ve once been turkey.
     “Well,” he said, “good news is, the bacterial load in that bird is now indistinguishable from the surface of the sun. Bad news is, so is the flavor.”
   Gutglor sniffed. “Don’t smell that bad. I bet we could pick the good bits off, make turkey salad.”
     “Sir,” the preacher said slowly, “we have standards.”
   “We got ham,” one of the church ladies called from the hall door. “Got a whole backup ham in the oven ’cause I know you people.”
     The crowd relaxed.
   Backup ham will do that.
     Cindy looked over at Bob. “Your polar bear okay?”
   They flipped the standee over. The bear’s face was streaked with grease and soot, pilgrim hat knocked crooked, lookin’ like he’d stormed Plymouth Rock single-pawed, wrestled the first turkey into submission, and still had enough left in him to personally cater the very first Thanksgiving. The expression on his cardboard face said: “History books don’t mention me… but they should.”
   Cindy squinted at the grease-smeared pilgrim. “That bear survived 1621, Prohibition, and Alabama winters. A Buzzard Roost Turkey Rocket ain’t takin’ him down.”
     Gary nodded solemn like he was saluting a veteran. “Man’s been feedin’ immigrants since before immigrants knew they was immigrants.”
   The Professor groaned, “Great. Now I gotta rewrite American history to include a cardboard bear and poultry artillery.”
     Bob looked at his mascot and shrugged. “He’s tougher than he looks. Last Easter he took a propane egg right to the snout.”
   Cindy lifted her phone and snapped a picture.
     “That,” she said, “is our Black Friday sale ad.”
   Bob nodded. “Caption: ‘Our prices got hit harder than this turkey.’”
     Chester looked over at the Turkey Wagon, still sitting on the flatbed, and suddenly remembered his promise.
   “Oh hell,” he muttered. “The LTD.”
     While the church ladies set up the backup ham and the crowd migrated toward the hall, Chester, Gary, and the Professor descended on that Ford wagon like doctors performing emergency surgery.
   The woman and her kids watched nervously.
     “Y’all still got time?” she asked.
   “We made a promise,” Chester said, pulling out a fuel filter he’d improvised from a coffee filter, duct tape, and a shop rag. “And in Buzzard Roost, that means something.”
     Gary had the serpentine belt off, replaced it with one he’d “borrowed” from a Buick behind the VFW. The Professor tightened the battery terminals and checked the fluids like a man who’d given up on nitrous-enhanced poultry and returned to his roots.
   Twenty minutes later, the LTD coughed, sputtered, and roared to life.
     “She’ll get you to Spruce Pine,” Chester said, wiping his hands. “Might not look pretty, but she’ll get you there.”
   The woman’s eyes got a little wet. “Thank you. How much do I owe you?”
     Chester waved her off. “It’s Thanksgiving. Consider it paid.”
   Gary opened the trunk of the wagon and loaded it with aluminum pans: ham, stuffing, sweet potato casserole, pies. “For Grandma,” he said, cigarette bobbing. “Tell her it’s from the boys at Mad Mechanics.”
     The kids piled in, waving out the windows as the Turkey Wagon pulled onto Highway 43, the faux wood paneling catching the afternoon sun like it was suddenly dignified.

Waylon Intermission: “They didn’t get the turkey right, but they got that family twenty miles down the road and handed ’em a box of pies and ham. In Buzzard Roost math, that’s a win.”

   And somehow, with backup ham and pure stubborn determination, they pulled off Thanksgiving.
     The ham came out perfect. Gutglor’s questionable moonshine and mater bud yams got scraped clean. Cindy’s sweet potato casserole disappeared in a blink. Kids wobbled from too much macaroni and cheese. Old vets leaned back in folding chairs, plates balanced on bellies, telling stories that didn’t sound like stories till you realized they were true.
   Dead Air Radio settled on a low mix of soul and classic rock, eventually landing on something warm and communal that made you want to lean on somebody.
     Every now and then it’d drop in an ad for Chill n’Fill or some flashy new peoduct, then right back to the music.
   By late afternoon, the wreckage of the Turbo-Fry 3000 was cooling by the dumpster, the polar bear had been stood back up (battle scars and all), and the worst of the smell had blown toward the river where it could confuse the fish.
     And somehow, in that busted VFW lot, surrounded by people and noise and the faint scent of burnt turkey rocket, it felt exactly like Thanksgiving was supposed to.
   Messy. Loud. Barely under control. Shared.
     Meanwhile, eight hundred and nineteen miles north in Mesick, Michigan, Bob’s cousin was closing up the Yankee version of Chill n’Fill for the night when the old radio behind the counter — the one that only got static and 96.6 WDAR when the universe felt chatty — crackled to life.
   “—and this is 96.6 WDAR Dead Air, comin’ to you with a special replay of today’s ‘Disaster Feast’ broadcast—”
     He listened for a moment, heard something about a turkey rocket and a polar bear casualty, and muttered, “That sounds like shit that happens around here.”
   He flipped the “No Smoking” sign to “Closed” and went home.
     Later that night, after they’d hauled the ruined drum back to the shop and Cindy had left with a van full of footage and pie crumbs, the Professor made them sit down at the workbench.
   “Since ya’ll insist on turning every holiday into an engineering incident,” he said, “we’re gonna at least record what worked and what absolutely did not.”
     So, for the sake of history, here’s the Mad Mechanics: Gobble ‘Til You Wobble Recipe Book, as written in oil stains and coffee rings.

TURBO-FRY 3000 MOONSHINE NITROUS TURKEY
Yield: One ruined drum, one traumatized polar bear, several happy lawyers.

Ingredients:
• 1 extra-large turkey (preferably thawed)
• 20–25 gallons used fryer oil
• 1 “splash” of Gutglor’s muscadine strawberry moonshine (he defines “splash” as 2 quarts)
• 1 snowmobile engine
• 1 industrial leaf blower
• 1 propane burner
• 1 nitrous oxide bottle (for speed cooking)
• 0 common sense

Instructions:
1. Build the Turbo-Fry 3000 in a VFW parking lot where everyone can witness your mistakes.
2. Fill drum with oil and moonshine. Heat until it smells like the devil’s state fair.
3. Add nitrous “just to the first line” because Reedus said so.
4. Drop in a half-frozen turkey from a dangerous height.
5. Experience your very own poultry-based space program.
6. Feed everybody ham instead.
7. Repent.
   Professor’s Note: “This is not a recipe. This is Exhibit A.”

GUTGLOR’S “GOBBLE ‘TIL YOU WOBBLE” MATERLEAF STUFFING
Narrated by Gutglor, transcribed by Waylon

   “Now listen,” Gutglor said, leaning back on his stool. “You want stuffing that holds a plate together, soaks up gravy, makes ya feel good and doubles as construction adhesive if it hits air too long. Here’s how.”

Ingredients:
• 1 big pan of day-old cornbread, crumbled
• 4 slices white bread, torn up
• 1 stick butter
• 1 big onion, diced
• 3 celery stalks, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 cups chicken broth (or turkey drippin’s if you ain’t set it on fire)
• 1 cup chopped materwanna leafs (dried in the oven if y’r growin’in a greenhouse)
• 1 tsp sage
• 1 tsp thyme
• Salt & pepper
• Optional: a shot of muscadine wine “for the chef”

Directions:
1. In a skillet, melt butter. Sauté onion, celery, and garlic till they smell like Thanksgiving nostalgia.
2. Mix cornbread, white bread, and chopped materwanna leafs in a big bowl.
3. Pour veggie mix over bread. Add more herbs, salt, pepper.
4. Add broth a little at a time till it’s damp, not swamp.
5. Spread in greased pan. Bake at 350°F for 30–40 minutes, till the top crusts up and the middle still jiggles a little like Gary gettin’ out a lawn chair.

Serving Suggestion: Best eaten standing in the kitchen at 11 p.m., fork in the pan, wondering where your life went sideways.

CINDY’S CHILL N’FILL SWEET POTATO “COUNTER CASSEROLE”

   Cindy explained this leaning against the fender of the wrecker, coffee in hand.
     “Okay, so this started as ‘make something that holds under gas station heat lamps’ and turned into ‘comfort in a pan.’ I don’t measure, but here’s my closest guess.”

Ingredients:
• 4–5 large sweet potatoes, peeled & cubed
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2–3/4 cup brown sugar
• Splash of vanilla
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• Pinch of nutmeg
• Pinch of salt
• 1/2 cup mini marshmallows
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans (or whatever nuts Bob ain’t eaten)

Directions:
1. Boil sweet potatoes till tender, drain, mash with butter.
2. Stir in brown sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt. Taste it. If it doesn’t make your inner child hum, add more sugar.
3. Spread in baking dish. Top with marshmallows and pecans.
4. Bake at 350°F till marshmallows are golden and melty, about 20 minutes.
5. Put it on the counter at Chill n’Fill between the beef jerky and the lotto tickets. It’ll be gone by noon.

PROFESSOR THIBODAUX’S “NON-EXPLOSIVE” TURKEY METHOD

   The Professor insisted his version be included “for legal balance.”

Ingredients:
• 1 turkey, fully thawed (important enough to say twice)
• Salt, pepper, herbs
• Butter or oil

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 325°F.
2. Season turkey. Place in roasting pan.
3. Roast per every normal cookbook on earth.
4. Baste occasionally.
5. Remove when done. Let rest. Eat.
6. Notice how nothing exploded. Experience unfamiliar peace.

   Footnote: “If at any point you hear the word ‘nitrous’ in relation to your poultry, you have taken a wrong turn.”

   By the time the sun dipped behind the pines and the parking lot emptied, the VFW looked like the aftermath of a pleasant war. Folding chairs scattered. Pie tins empty. One poor polar bear standee leaning against a dumpster with a grease streak across his pilgrim hat like a combat stripe.
     The Turbo-Fry 3000 sat in the corner, blackened and dented, a warning more than a machine.
   Chester lit a cigarette, staring at it.
     “Well,” he said, “on the bright side, we proved you can launch poultry with household items.”
   “On the dim side,” the Professor said, “we also proved why you shouldn’t.”
     Cindy climbed into the Chill n’Fill van, still grinning.
   “I’m calling the edit ‘The Gobble That Went Wrong,’” she said. “We’ll bring you a T-shirt when it drops.”
     Bob shook Chester’s hand. “Ya’ll ever wanna deep-fry somethin’ at my place,” he said, “the answer is no.”
   Dead Air Radio crackled one last time as they pulled out, the signal fading in and out over the dark pines.
     “You are tuned to 96.6 W—D—A—R, Dead Air,” the DJ drawled. “Where the food’s burnt, the coffee’s strong, and the memories are medium-rare. Remember, listeners — it’s not Thanksgiving unless something gets overcooked, someone says somethin’ they can’t take back, and at least one turkey tries to achieve escape velocity. From all of us in the static: Gobble ’til you wobble, but try not to explode.”
   Chester looked around at his people — Gary, Reedus, Gutglor, Preacher and the Professor — all of them a little singed, a little tired, bellies full, hearts looser than they’d been yesterday.
     “Think we’ll get asked to do it again next year?” Gary asked, cigarette smoke curling up toward the streetlights.
   The preacher, who was locking the fellowship hall, heard that and answered without turning around.
     “No.”
   They all laughed.
     Somewhere behind the laughter, the smell of burnt oil and ham and cheap coffee tangled up into something you could almost call home.
   In Buzzard Roost, that’s about as perfect as it gets.
     And if you listened real close, over the ringing in your ears and the squeak of the dumpster lid closing, you could swear you heard a cardboard polar bear whisper:
   “Yeah. Let’s not do that again.”

Waylon Outro: “Now that there, folks, is what I call a genuine Thanksgiving miracle. We turned a sixty-thousand-dollar muscle car into a pig taxi once, we’ve built wooden trucks out of old Plymouths and now we’ve proved that given enough moonshine, nitrous oxide, and complete disregard for the laws of thermodynamics, you can launch a frozen turkey into low orbit. The preacher got his community feed, the people got their bellies full, and nobody had to spend the night in the county jail explaining why they felt off after eating the mater-leaf stuffing and the turkey DNA on a cardboard polar bear. We even got a family to Grandma’s house with a trunk full of ham and … stuffing, which in Buzzard Roost math counts as two miracles in one day. And if you ever find yourself wondering whether you should add racing fuel technology to your Thanksgiving dinner preparations, well, the answer is no — but it sure makes for a story worth telling. Happy Thanksgiving from all of us at Mad Mechanics, where we prove every holiday that the line between genius and disaster is thinner than a coffee filter fuel system.”