Last week’s question:

My mother-in-law was recently transported, by ambulance, from the hospital in Waterville to the hospital in Augusta. This was not an emergency: no sirens and flashing lights. It was a post-surgery transfer. (She is fine.) What was the bill for the ~20 mile ambulance ride?

I assume everyone got this one right: The answer is D. The bill was just under $1,000. The story gets “better”: When my mother-in-law was finally discharged, having endured two weeks of total isolation because she tested positive for COVID, the ambulance that took her home got lost. I am not kidding. No joke.  

A. $200 = 10 dollars per mile

B.  $400 = 20 dollars per mile

C.  $600 = 30 dollars per mile

D.  $1,000 = 50 dollars per mileE. It was free, the ambulance was headed back to Waterville anyway.

Thanksgiving special:

Turkeys are indigenous to the Americas. How did these big birds get their name? (One of these is true – no joke!) 

A. Died meat from the wild fowl was very tough and the name Turkey was coined to differentiate it from died beef “Jerky”. 

B. The first Europeans to eat the unusual American bird got so drunk on “Wild Turkey” whiskey, they couldn’t think of a better name. 

C. Early Europeans were famous for getting lost. They thought America was part of the Ottoman Empire and thus the strange birds were from Turkey. 

D. Turkey was a derogatory term associated with Ben Franklin. Franklin opposed adopting the carrion eating Bald Eagle as America’s bird. Instead, Franklin promoted the American “peacock”. Eventually, both Franklin, and his birds, were known as “Turkeys”.

E. “Turkey” is the angelized version of the Wampanoag name for the wild bird the Indians served the Pilgrims at the first Thanksgiving dinner. 

F. Turkey is Yekrut spelled backwards. Yekrut is what the Pilgrims did after ingesting too much Wild Turkey. 

Be moderate and have a great, Fauci-less, Thanksgiving! 

Randall Poulton