Turkeys! They have been creating mayhem and causing fear among inhabitants of the strange Island of Staten for at least a decade now–halting traffic, shitting on everything, and trapping women in cars. If you didn’t know this, it’s because no one from Staten could tell you–they’re all hiding in their homes, so the turkeys won’t get them.
New York Daily News staff writer Matthew Lysiak has written an update about the S.I. turkey population, which the state estimates is about 100 but the inhabitants more than 1,000. Lysiak and his sources call the feathered creatures a “frenzied,” “disgusting,” “horrible,” “filthy,” “terrible, terrible,” strutting, meandering, lingering, rampaging, “brown-feathered,” “menacing” “scourge” of fiends. Nevertheless, some of the natives want to eat the turkeys–though not Lysiak, who finds their brazen ways “hardly mouth-watering.” Nothing can protect humans from the wild animals, who loiter in people’s yards and basically do whatever they want.
“It was straight out of ‘Cujo,'” said dental assistant Gina Guaragno, 23. “I’m sitting in my car Facebooking on my phone when turkeys jumped on my windshield.
“I screamed like I was being murdered. They just kept looking at me like it was their car. I felt trapped. I was so scared.”
Guaragno’s extreme fear of the turkey is completely defensible, given turkeys’ long history of violence. Turning to our American history books, who can forget the tragic story of the Thanksgiving Massacre of 1774, when a mob of enraged turkeys attacked, robbed, and murdered hundreds of colonial families in Roanoke? Or the devastation caused by turkey riots during the early 20th century, which wreaked havoc in cities across the American Midwest? Presidents tried to pass sedition laws to keep the turkeys out of America, but the stubborn creatures kept sneaking across our porous borders, stealing jobs from ducks and geese, draining government coffers, and distributing communist pamphlets.
The reason why Americans eat turkeys on Thanksgiving is to keep their population down, so the animals don’t outnumber and eventually destroy us. But every once in a while–actually, quite often–a pocket of turkeys strikes some innocent American community, to poop recklessly and terrify terrifyingly. Some prior invasions:
- Vallejo, California, March 2010: Aggressive, wild turkeys take over a quiet suburban neighborhood, chasing children, attacking mail carriers, and inspiring terrible anchorpeople “jokes.” News coverage (NSFW):
- New Mexico, March 2009: emboldened turkeys talked to humans, scared kids, and ruined property. Watch the video on this page and try to figure out why the TV anchorman keeps making those up-and-down hand motions; I can’t figure it out.
- Turkeys in a Massachusetts yard! (NSF zany-music haters)
- Turkeys in Colorado suburbs!
- Turkeys eating this Utah guy’s cat food!
- “Turkeys gone wild” in Jersey!
- Turkeys in Staten Island in 2007!
- Turkeys in Staten Island in 2002!
Today it’s Staten Island; tomorrow, it’s Herald Square. Turkeys don’t care where they go, as long as they’re going someplace–to terrorize, and be fiendy. |NYDN|
