Do you want to hear a funny story?

Oh, it’s so funny, ha ha ha!

Ok, so last night (the Tuesday before thanksgiving) I’m cooking a casserole in my oven.  My oven has a flat touch screen where you digitally set the temperature, so I set it to 350 and shove the casserole in.  The oven starts to preheat and I watch as the digital temperature rises, rises and rises up to 350.  I set the timer and move on to the next agenda item.  The timer goes off and I pull out the casserole, only to realize that it’s not cooked.  I look and notice that my digital read out thingy is indicating that the oven is off.

That’s odd.

Darn it.  The kids must have been messing around with it.  So I set it again.  A few minutes later I notice that the oven is off again.  I’m starting to panic.

But to be fair, I’m having an off day.  I’ve been a little overwhelmed recently and apparently it’s starting to show.  I pulled in for gas and hopped out to pump without putting the car in park.  Luckily, the van’s gentle rolling backward tipped me off and I was able to hop back in and put it in park before I killed someone.

Later I was making the casserole and stored a 1 pound block of cheese in the drawer with the saran wrap before I later found it and put it in the refrigerator.  I also ended up serving a handful of casserole into my water glass before I realized that it wasn’t my plate.  So I’m clearly a little off.  And so I assumed that maybe I had just thought I set the oven.

So I set the oven once again and then sat in front of it and watched. The temperature began to climb.  170, 222, 286, 322 and then it hit 350 and poof, the oven turned off.

My oven is broken.

It will not stay on.

THE DAY BEFORE THANKSGIVING!

Luckily I’m only feeding 14, so I’m sure we’ll manage.  I can always fry the turkey up in a skillet on the stove and maybe bake the green bean casserole on the grill (no wait!  The grill is broken too!)

So, currently it is 6:55 a.m. the day before thanksgiving and I am patiently waiting for the oven repair stores to open so I can beg beg beg someone to bump all their appointments and come out and fix my stove before I have to abandon the several million dollars worth of food I’ve bought and order pizza for everyone.

So, in the spirit of Thanksgiving catastrophe, I have imagined several other scenarios that I assume will happen Thanksgiving day to complete the chaos.

Scenario 1 
The Macy’s Day parade balloon of snoopy will escape from its handlers and blow high into the Manhattan sky.  Unusual North / South winds will carry Snoopy to Maryland where he will begin to deflate, settling across our home.  His nose will become lodged in our fireplace where a cozy afternoon fire will end up setting Snoopy alight.  As the heated air once again raises the now re-inflated Snoopy into the air, my children’s screams will fill the silence as they are forever scarred by the sight of a 200 foot high flaming Snoopy floating above our backyard before his immolated body crashes into the woods igniting a forest fire and forcing us to live in a FEMA trailer for Christmas.

Scenario 2
As I am putting the turkey into the roasting pan and sliding it into the (hopefully?) fixed oven, I think I see it twitch.  I ignore it, but moments later as the oven heats up, I hear a banging on the inside of the oven door.  I open the door and the turkey jumps out, risen from the dead, and begins to run around the house, forever scarring the children and resisting all attempts to be marinated.

Lest you think that this is a silly horror story, let me point you to the TRUE story of Mike the Headless Chicken.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_the_Headless_Chicken

In 1945 a farmer went out to kill a chicken, but botched it and didn’t quite get a clean cut.  The head was off, but the chicken was still alive.  The farmer began feeding it by dropping milk into its neck hole.  The chicken lived for two years and earned the family thousands of dollars as a side show attraction.  (favorite part of the story:  the farmer traveled with a chicken head in a jar, but this was a fake head.  The real head was eaten by a cat)

So, if a chicken can run around headless, I think it is fully within the realm of possibility to think that a beheaded, befeeted, fully plucked and eviscerated turkey might wake from its catatonic state once warmed by the oven and then crash around through our house in anger.  So there.

Scenario 3  
Through a printing error, Wal-mart’s thanksgiving sale ad lists its address as our home address.  At 5am, a horde of hundreds is lined up outside our front door waiting to get great deals on TVs, DVDs and lotion gift baskets.  By 5:15, they’re starting to get rowdy.  By 5:30 one of them has broken a window and by 5:45 thousands of people are streaming through our living room window tearing the house apart in search of “blu-ray players for only $99.99” 

The house is destroyed, the children are scarred for life and just as a man wielding our 5 year old mp3 player starts yelling “This isn’t an iphone!  Kill them!  Kill them!”  another person screams and shouts “Look!  It’s a headless turkey!”  The turkey, smelling faintly of butter, wine and sage, hobbles into the room, scattering Wal-mart customers like so many cockroaches.  As my son pats the turkey’s back and says “Good headless turkey,”  another scream erupts as the screaming hordes are seen fleeing from what appears to be a giant flaming snoopy balloon.

All in all, the irony is overwhelming and as we sit down to our meal of pepperoni pizza and crazy bread, we all say a little prayer of gratitude on this special day of Thanksgiving.