By Jane WilsonWhen I heard a local resident had had his car window smashed by his frozen turkey, I just knew that was the same turkey that smashed out my car window two months ago and stole my bag while I was surfing. I have never liked turkey, I find it dry and bland, and so to find that it is also prone to petty crime is no surprise to me. People will tell you that there is no problem with genetically modified food (not people I know, obviously, other people), but I ask you if this sort of thing happened before we started tinkering with genetics? There may be some precautions you can take to prevent this from happening to you. First of all, and this is my personal plan, don't eat turkey and then it's never in your car plotting escape. Most people are just eating it so they can eat the gravy and trimmings anyway so I say, "Safety first, let's have a nice roast beef, perhaps with Yorkshire pudding." Have you ever heard of a roast beef, or rack of lamb, smashing out someone's car window? I thought not. If you are determined to have the turkey you could try the most basic of safety procedures and tell it firmly to "stay" before you shut the car door. If you want to take the next step in safety, you could buy one of those old baby seats from a thrift store. Those seats should under no circumstances be used for actual children as they do not age well, the plastic gets brittle and they can have stress fractures from previous accidents, however in this age of reusing and re-purposing they can readily be used as turkey restraint devices. It may be not be adequate to protect your child but it will almost certainly be good enough to protect you from your turkey. Just buckle the turkey in, tell it to "stay" and drive with confidence knowing that your frozen turkey is restrained from escaping. Just make sure you get one with a seat with a 5-point harness so it doesn't slip away from you. You could also buy one of those facial restraint masks like Hannibal Lector wore in Silence of the Lambs and put on your restrained turkey. I know your turkey doesn't have a head, but it would more be a visual reminder not to trust the turkey than actual protection. Of course, I said that you could do that, not that you should, because the likelihood is that you would catch a glimpse of the turkey in the mask in you rearview mirror, flinch and then swerve off the road. What you should do is put a cute hat on the turkey in the car seat so that it doesn't look alarming when you catch sight of it in the rearview mirror. I'm just thinking of your safety here, and not in any way my own twisted amusement.Please email me at jane.wilson@hgqci.org if there's any other helpful advice I can give you. However if you are determined to buy one of those free-range turkeys, you have no one but yourself to blame because it's right there on the label.