If you’re like me, you’ve seen this iconic Norman Rockwell image hundreds of thousands of bo-zillions of times. It’s a nice little picture; I don’t quite know what to make of the plate of celery in the middle of the table, it hardly seems a traditional Thanksgiving side dish, but whatever. This is not the bone I come to pick.

Looking at my fList this morning as I was mentally preparing myself to do battle with the ginormous 24lb turkey we have sitting in the fridge, I came upon this picture. And for the first time, I realized just how completely and utterly improbable and gravitationally wrong it is. Jesus God, how the hell is the sweet old woman in the blue dress and the white apron DOING that? She’s half-bent at the waist, holding a turkey that—unless it’s made of styrofoam—has to be a good 40 pounder, not even counting stuffing! I like giant turkeys, I roast giant turkeys, and my friends, that giant turkey she’s holding so daintily is way more giant than any bird I’ve ever tried to tackle.

And yet look at her. Her face shows no strain, only placid pride and even a kind of sweet boredom (“Oh, how many huge turkeys I’ve roasted over the years!”) But she should have some Schwarzenegger-size guns bulging out underneath those pretty rick-racked cap sleeves. (Especially that left arm bent at the elbow. Kee-ripes!)

I’m sure some among you will argue, “hey, she’s been caught in mid-motion.” But that opens a whole other can of worms, because if that is the case, then that woman has no control over that turkey, and what we’re NOT seeing is the disaster a split-second later, when that plate of bird crashes down on the table, knocks over all the glassware, startles all those bent-in heads into rearing back precipitously (some people falling backwards in their chairs, one imagines) and the celery flying. And granny shouting, “There! THERE’S your damn turkey!”

So we have three options:

1) Granny’s an atomic mutant superwoman.

2) The bird is carefully crafted of styrofoam. She’s decided to play a funny joke on her family this year. The bird is fake, and all they’re getting for Thanksgiving dinner is celery.

3) This picture captures the “the calm before the storm,” catching a glimpse of a family about to be in tumultuous uproar.

I certainly can’t tell which it is. (But the guy in the lower right corner of the painting? HE knows. Look at those eyes, people. He knows.) Any one of these interpretations, however, reveals hidden, subversive depths in Norman Rockwell that I never thought existed. I shall now have to go look at that painting of the cop and the runaway kid eating ice cream and see what kind of subtext I’ve missed there. Oh, and also put the turkey in the oven.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.