I suppose all families have stories which become tradition to re-tell every holiday. This is my annual telling of the year of the great turkey fail:
I was a young bride and decided to host Thanksgiving for both sets of parents. This would be my first time hosting Thanksgiving and I wanted everything to be perfect. My parents and in-laws traveled from a distance to our house and I had shopped and cooked and baked, making everything from scratch.
The dinner was coming together nicely and the turkey was roasting in the oven. My then-husband was in the living room entertaining the parents while I worked in the kitchen. Part way through the roasting of the turkey, I noticed that instead of the wonderful and delicious smell of turkey wafting through the house, a strange chemical odor was emanating from the oven. I checked the turkey and it appeared to be fine. I thought maybe there was residue from oven cleaner burning off, but I had not cleaned the oven lately so that wasn't the problem. I checked everything in the oven to try to ascertain the source of the strange odor- with no luck. I finally stuck my head out of the kitchen door and sweetly asked my husband to come into the kitchen. I explained the strange smell to him and asked whether he knew what the problem could be. He inquired, " did you wash the roasting pan before you used it?" I told him that I had not as I had simply retrieved it from the kitchen cabinet and it should have been clean from the last time it was used. He then informed me that he had used it the last time he changed the oil in the car to drain the old oil into. About this time, my hair was standing on end and I questioned why he had used my roasting pan for car repairs and why he had put a dirty pan back into the cabinet. He said "I thought you would wash it before you used it. I did wipe it out." OMG, I now had turkey cooking in 10W30 motor oil.
I had to take the turkey out of the oven, toss it in the trash, and then explain to the parents why we now had to go out to eat dinner. I was so embarrassed.
Fast forward to many years later and one morning while I was driving to work and listening to the morning radio show, the DJ's announced a contest for the craziest Thanksgiving turkey story. Of course I had to call in and relate the year of the motor oil turkey. They agreed that I had the winning story and asked whether I was still married to that husband (no). I won $100 for the story.
So, now every year on Thanksgiving I gather the family around, young and old alike, and re-tell the, now traditional, Thanksgiving turkey story.
I hope your holiday is wonderful and does not contain any traces of motor oil!
