The Turkey Effect

I was talking with my dad yesterday during a car ride, sharing Thanksgiving plans, and he was talking about the sizes of turkeys both this year and last. I haven’t prepared a turkey in 12+ years so I was interested in what he had to say. What we came up with is The Turkey Effect.

2020 Turkeys

It turns out, last year he had a very small Thanksgiving dinner – with Covid it made sense to not have guests. But they still wanted to prepare a traditional dinner. At the stores, the only available turkeys were gigantic. Enough for a huge gathering. An army. Half the town.

2021 Turkeys

This year, he found the opposite to be true. They’re having a small gathering but a gathering nonetheless, and all he can find are tiny turkeys. Not only that, when he asked the store clerk when they’d be getting their larger birds, he was told he best take what he can get because that might be it.

So…

What is going on? Did he simply miss the boat both years? Is something going on with turkey farms where one year they had only large birds and the next only tiny?

The Turkey Effect

With our great philosophical wisdom, we came up with The Turkey Effect, a by-product of Covid. With the business shut downs in 2020, some business came back but some did not. Some are slowly still coming back. Some never will. We decided that with this trickle effect, somehow turkey farms were impacted. That turkeys are the great indicator of economic health, truly The Turkey Effect. Or, maybe, in a weird twist, it is the other way around.

Which came first, the turkey or the economy?

This is silly but we had fun with it. Humor us.

Research Says

Of course, I had to look this up when I got home. I found this article from last month.

It seems to be saying the opposite of what my dad experienced. Dang it, our theory is blown! A lot of thought goes into planning predicted turkey sizes, but apparently my dad missed the boat both years. Or, his store did.

Here’s what NPR had to say about it last year…

I’m rather a fan of turkeys being economic indicators. It fits. What do you think? Hmm?

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