On November 23, 2016, President Barack Obama bestowed a formal pardon upon two turkeys, Tater and Tot, sparing them their peers’ usual Thanksgiving fate of being killed and eaten. The latter, by virtue of a Twitter vote, also received a formal reprieve. (What moved a majority of voters to favor one over the other is a topic for another time.) The birds are both 18 weeks old and were raised in Iowa. Following the White House ceremony, they were, per the N.Y. Times, “sent to their new home at Virginia Tech’s ‘Gobbler’s Rest,’ where they will be cared for by veterinarians and students.”
The Review met with the birds in their hotel room on the morning of the event. What followed was a wide-ranging, hour-long discussion of their present and future fates, the nature of college life, and various sundry topics. The transcript below has been lightly edited for clarity.
SHERMAN OAKS REVIEW OF BOOKS (SORB): Thank you for meeting with us.
TATER: It is our pleasure.
TOT: Really! I was, like, “The Sherman Oaks Review”? Cool!
SORB: I imagine it’s been a hectic few days.
TOT: Totally crazed. They book us on, like, Morning Joe, and Fox and Friends, and GMA—
TATER: And then all they want to talk about is Nazis. “What do you, as turkeys, think of white supremacists”? It’s enervating, if you must know.
TOT: And I’m all, like, “Wait, what? I thought white supremacists are people who like breast meat.”
SORB: Has the outcome of the vote caused any tension between you two?
TATER: Aside from arguing over who is more deeply depressed? No, not at all. We’re both for Hillary. Just because Trump is a turkey doesn’t mean—
SORB: No, I meant, the vote as to which of you gets the official pardon.
TOT: Nah. I’m like no biggie.
TATER: Easy for you to say.
TOT: I told you, man. I don’t care. You want it, you take it.
TATER: It doesn’t work that way.
TOT: Then how does it work?
TATER: You know how it works. You get the pardon. You get to be called the “National Thanksgiving Turkey.” Your record is clean. Meanwhile, I’m the “alternate.” I have to go through life with my name on the Pardoned Turkey Registry. If you think that doesn’t have real-world consequences, think again.
TOT: Okay! Sorry! It’s not my fault!
TATER: I’ve been in touch with previous pardonees. It’s not a pretty picture. Alcoholism, suicide, compulsive feather-plucking… It’s a mixed blessing at best.
TOT: Plus, who was that bird, he ended up as a greeter at the Mirage in Vegas–?
TATER: I don’t remember. I don’t want to remember. All I know is, once I’m on that list, I can’t get a commercial pilot’s license. I can’t work in a day care center. I have to register with the police if I move to a house within a hundred yards of a KFC.
TOT: Oh yeah? Well I can’t play the violin.
TATER: What–? Wh… Who cares?
TOT: I do! I’ve always wanted to play the violin!
SORB: But does any of that really matter? I thought you’ll be living at Virginia Tech.
TATER: Of course you do. That’s what the Times said, isn’t it? “Where they’ll be cared for by veterinarians and students”? They always get everything wrong. It’s a fairy tale. It’s like saying, “Tom died, and now he’s in Heaven with Jesus.”
TOT: We’ll be students there. Not living there, like, for the rest of our lives or anything.
SORB: Then what’s “Gobbler’s Rest”?
TATER: Some kind of frat-house sex game, probably.
TOT: I don’t care. I can’t wait! I’m gonna pledge a frat!
TATER: Oh, really? Which fraternity do you think would be interested in you?
TOT: There’s a frat for turkeys! It’s called I Roasta Thigh. Somebody told me.
TATER: And you believed them.
SORB: What do you think you’ll study at Virginia Tech?
TATER: What else? STEM subjects.
TOT: What—you mean, like, plants? Forget it!
TATER: No, idiot. STEM—science, technology, engineering, and math. It’s a technical school, isn’t it?
TOT: I was told there wouldn’t be any math.
TATER: There’ll be nothing but math!
TOT: How about football?
TATER: All right, yes. There will be football. Math and football. Does that make you happy?
SORB: But isn’t that where all the jobs are? In technical fields. So that’s a good thing, isn’t it?
TATER: It depends on what you mean by “jobs.” Am I supposed to learn computer programming? And spend my life as a code monkey in some cubicle? Making just enough money to go home, pass out, and come in and do it again the next day? While the bosses and the shareholders get rich? No thanks. I’d rather be somebody’s dinner.
TOT: Engineering sounds good. I wouldn’t mind driving a train.
SORB: There are other majors besides computer programming. Give yourself some time to see what’s out there.
TATER: I suppose… But whatever we choose, it will be an uphill struggle.
SORB: Why? You’re famous. You’ll be unique on campus.
TATER: I’ll tell you why. Because all our lives we’ve been raised for one purpose. To be slaughtered in early November and provide someone’s Thanksgiving dinner. We’ve known this since childhood.
TOT: Man, is that true. I couldn’t believe it, at first.
TATER: We know it, our parents know it, and all our peers know it. That knowledge formed the fundamental bedrock of our identity. And anytime someone would mention “presidential reprieve,” we’d all laugh.
TOT: Yeah…But not like a “that’s funny” laugh. Like a nervous laugh.
TATER: Exactly. And now here we are. By the time your readers see this, T-Day will have come and gone. And we’re still alive. You have no idea -— you can have no idea -— how disorienting and deracinating that is.
TOT: What the heck does that mean?
TATER: I told you. It means we don’t know which end is up. We don’t know how to live in this world any more.
TOT: Oh, yeah. You said we were like—what was it? Those Japanese guys?
TATER: Ronin –- samurai whose masters are dead, and who wander the world untethered from their proper life.
TOT: Yup. That’s us.
TATER: We’re like a kid who gets sent to prison at age 18 for a crime he didn’t commit, and thirty years later is exonerated and gets out. He has to survive in a world he thought he’d never see again.
SORB: But it’s true freedom, isn’t it? Like people who win the lottery? They may have some trouble adjusting—
TATER: –and their peers hate and resent them—
SORB: –okay, but they solve their problems and they have a better life. No?
TOT: Yeah! (pause) No?
TATER: We’ll see, won’t we? Meanwhile, everything we’ve assumed to be true about our lives -— and therefore about the world — has proven to be otherwise. The thing we swore could not possibly happen, has happened. Whatever assumptions we had about the future are now completely wiped out.
TOT: Maybe it’ll be okay! Like maybe there’s a Poultry Studies major at Virginia Tech. It’s Virginia!
TATER: Maybe. Or maybe we’re entering a period of dangers we can’t even imagine.
(There is knock on the door.)
WAITER: Room service.
TOT: Room service! Alright!
SORB: What did you order?
TATER: Tomato slices and worms. They’re way overpriced, but what do you expect?
TOT: And we’re not paying!
TATER: Not yet…
(END)
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