It was like something out of a horror movie. It was staring at me, all 12 pounds of it, and all I could do was stare back. It wasn’t a rabid raccoon come to steal my garbage. No, this creature was a turkey, and I had no idea what to do with it.

Let me back up a bit.

Picture a 7-year-old girl, barely tall enough to see over the kitchen counters, and her stepfather tasking her with the job of shoving soggy bread into a giant, pink, featherless bird with a gaping maw posed to snap shut over her small fingers.

I was that little girl, and that was my first real encounter with the Thanksgiving standby. Sure, I’d eaten many in my day, but I had never had to deal with the uncooked version, and I certainly never expected it to look like, well, an evil demon-bird ready to eat me as soon as I turned my back.

Except for one Thanksgiving when my sister and I ended up putting a pre-cleaned and stuffed turkey into the oven after my mom got called in to work, I had all but refused to roast my own turkey.

I don’t know what came over me this year, but I decided that this was the year I would be overcoming my food fears and roasting a turkey.

And that brings us to last Sunday — when I celebrated Thanksgiving with my dad — and the turkey that I had no idea what to do with.

I spun it around on the counter, casing the bird, trying to figure out which way was up and how the heck you were even supposed to get the neck and gizzards free from the cavity. I eventually was able to figure out where the neck was and pull it out, causing images of Sigourney Weaver and the creature from “Alien” to flash through my mind. I think I screamed a little when it came out because that’s when I caught sight of the gaping maw of my childhood, free to attack at any moment.

Where was my dad through all this, you ask? Why, he was in the living room, laughing at me. And then I realized I must have looked pretty hysterical, and I started giggling myself. And what I did next I’m not proud of, but it did help me get over my fears. I sat the turkey up on its rump and waved a wing at my dad.

And that’s how I got over my fear of handling raw turkey. Luckily my dad was there to take over for a bit and fish the gizzards out and rinse the turkey for me.

A few hours later, we were all eating turkey and gravy and many other delicious foods. Maybe it was just my imagination, but I’m pretty sure I’ve never eaten a turkey that tasted better than that one.