This weekend we helped some friends move. In our last trip packing the (world’s smallest!) UHaul truck we made an interesting discovery. It turns out that despite the common practice to reuse oil in you fryer, it’s not recommended for such things as turkey friers left in one’s garage over the winter. Now before I go any further, these are very clean people who keep their home in a cleanly manner. Lets put it this way, a couple that consists of a micro biologist and a soon (~36 days officially) to be doctor, know how and why one should keep their home clean. Leaving a little oil in the frier however, should be no problem with the cover on right?

After all, any of us that has a bubba cooker has done this, especially if there was snow on the ground. You let the oil cool somewhere safe so you don’t dump it out and get splatter burns. Occasionally you forget about it for a few days, or in this case, months. Whats the harm right?

Well as we learned, apparently mice, we named these ones the “Jones Family” really like turkey fat. Sadly, 14 of these poor mice in all found their way into the oil filled pot and could not find their way out. As the soon to be doctor said “I’ve seen a lot of nasty things in my life, but this takes the new number one spot.” And folks, let me tell you some of the stuff shes seen is bad.

We dumped the “Jones Family” (I don’t know why, but someone suggested this name.) out in the back yard. We were curious if the animals would come and investigate the rancid smell of the mice oil-moist flesh. Unfortunately we had more moving and unpacking to do, so we have no idea what happened from the point that we dumped them out and moved the last load to the new house.

Rest in peace mice.

I don’t think any of us will be having fried turkey for a while.