Okay I feel silly asking this but I have googled "turkey baster" and can't find any reference to this issue.

Is it just me or does everyone find that turkey basters just do not work for basting turkeys?

I have owned at least 8 or 10 basters of different materials and prices but none work. When I try to suck up the drippings from around the cooking turkey, my rubber bulb gets soft and expands around the glass or metal tube. As soon as it gets soft (which happens as soon as the hot drippings enter the bulb) suction is lost and nothing comes up the tube.

How do other people cope with this? Is there some trick I need to know about using a turkey baster that I have somehow missed all these years? Or is there a super-dooper, expensive, high tech baster I can buy that will effectively suck up really hot drippings and allow me to actually baste with them?

I've often ended up manhandling the darn turkey out of the pan so I can dump the drippings into a cup to baste with but that is very, very messy. What should I do?