So, I’m having a pre-Easter breakdown.

You know, one of those head-spinning, gob-drooling, green-stuff-puking episodes. It kinda makes The Exorcist look like Walt Disney and Linda Blair look like Kathie-Lee Gifford. It’s about as pretty as a hat full of gizzards.

It goes something like this:

“Sorry Hun, but it looks like I’m working Easter.” My husband takes a step back and holds up a grocery-bag shield. Obviously, he knows my gob-drooling, green-stuff-puking range.

“You WHAT?!”

“They’ve got me scheduled to work brunch. You’re going to have to do George.”

I fall, face to the floor, and assume the crucified position. And it’s not even Good Friday. I bang my head against the gob-splattered floor. I’m actually speechless. When words finally come, it sounds like a cross between fireworks and a fire engine.

“But I don’t want to do George! I don’t know how to do George! Are you crazy? I ain’t got the skills, baby. George is too big for me!”

Now normally, if your husband comes home two weeks before Easter and tells you to “do” something that starts and ends with another man’s name, you’d think you’d died and gone to Movie-Star-Fantasy heaven. Apparently not. That would be Thanksgiving.

No, in this case, we’re not talking about doing “George the Demigod Clooney”; we’re talking about doing “George the Butterball Turkey.” Unfortunately, for me, my husband’s affinity to name poultry and our upcoming Easter dinner are one and the same thing.

“But…but…but… I’ve never made a turkey!” My bottom lip’s protruding like a doorstop. “I get lost making macaroni and cheese.”

Mark scrapes me off the floor and pats me on the back. “You can do it, hun. I believe in you! The whole family believes in you.”

I give him the eyeballs of doom. If I felt any more patronized, I’d be a religious icon.

So, what do you do when you’re forty and you’ve never even once cooked a turkey? Well, up to this point, it’s been a carefully orchestrated exercise in marrying men who already know how to cook one. Considering I’m into my third (marriage that is), it’s a strategy I need to revise.

Okay, so how hard can it be? The thing’s dead, right? I envision Mr. Bean thrashing around the kitchen with a turkey on his head. That would be me. I sprawl across the counter in a defeated slump. “Alright, what do I gotta do?”

Mark pulls the bird from the fridge and sets it in the sink. “Once George is thawed, you need to put your hand in here and pull out the giblets.” He makes a motion with his hand and my face turns a steely gray.

“You want me to put my hand up George’s butt? Come on man, browning and basting is one thing, but when it comes to poultry colonoscopies, I’m drawing the line!”

Mark cringes and starts again. “How about we not make this so personal? You put your hand down the TURKEY’S NECK… not butt… and pull out the innards.”

I’m having a flashback moment. I recently went for a gastroscopy where the doctor had to shove a garden hose down my throat to stretch my narrow esophagus. Call me argumentative, but in my experience, garden hoses and gag reflexes are not mutually compliant things.

I shake my head. “I don’t know, Mark. There’s a reason why I was vegetarian for years. When I see poor George sitting here, minus his head and feathers, of course, it just seems so… so…” I grapple for the right words, “It just seems so… cannibalistic!”

Mark groans. “Look, in order for you to be a turkey cannibal, you’d have to be a turk…” He smiles amidst the brilliance of a glowing light-bulb moment.

Good grief! I did it again.

“Never mind! Spaghetti-O’s and carrot sticks, it is!” I grab George and shove him, butt first, back in the freezer.

Resurrections and tombstone-rolling aside, I’m praying for an Easter miracle.