Community Corner

Epic Fail! The Funniest Thanksgiving Mishaps [SPONSORED]

Whether it's a side dish that goes awry or a half-thawed turkey, Thanksgiving mishaps happen. Here are some of the funniest and most unusual ones—and how you can avoid a similar fate. Sponsored by Sony.

Written by Denise Koek

Thanksgiving is…complicated.  We honor our uptight Puritan ancestors by gorging ourselves. We celebrate family harmony by rehashing old grudges. We bond by ignoring each other in favor of whatever football game is on TV.  

Courtesy of Patch readers, here are just a few funny Turkey Day traumas—and how you can avoid them.

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The Mishap: During Mikki’s first year living in Hong Kong, she dressed her turkey sumptuously. Then she attempted to pop it into the oven—which was too small for a sixteen-pound bird…

The Solution: Never relocate to a country less gluttonous than your own; ask your company only to transfer you to places with the same outrageous portion sizes as ours.

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The Mishap: Suzannah was hugely pregnant, so she accepted her sister-in-law’s gracious offer to cook the Thanksgiving meal. However, sis-in-law didn’t make clear that she intended to cook everything at Suzannah’s house, dirtying every pot, pan and platter in the process. Pregnant Suzannah was up until 4:00 a.m. scrubbing dishes. Halfway through this ordeal, her father-in-law mistook her sink full of clean dishes for dirty ones and emptied his glass of soda over everything she’d just washed. So she had to start all over…

The Solution: When a relative offers to cook for you, whip out your Sony Xperia® Tablet Z and locate a good caterer.

The Mishap: One year, at Lacey’s feast, some turkey drippings sloshed into the oven. The kitchen filled with smoke and instantly set off the fire alarm. As the family frantically threw open windows and doors, the fire department arrived.

The Solution: Offer the firefighters some hors’ d’oeuvres, and laugh at yourselves as you consume your messy but still-delectable dinner. (That’s what actually happened, in this case.)

The Mishap: Judy placed her hot, juicy turkey on the countertop to rest. She returned shortly to find her beloved spaniel, Snoopy, atop the counter, happily chomping on one of the turkey legs.  She attempted to wrestle the meat from her suddenly-fierce pet in vain. Her husband donned a pair of dog-bite-proof oven mitts and forced Snoopy to relinquish his snack. They then “cut around” the slobbery parts and served the battered bird.

The Solution: Go online with your Sony Xperia® Tablet Z and find a non-athletic, vegan pet.

The Mishap: 21-year-old newlywed, Elaine, cooked her meal the night before. The turkey smelled odd when she removed it from the oven, but she placed it on the table to cool and promptly fell asleep. Eight hours later, she awoke and stuck it in the fridge. Thanksgiving night, while carving the turkey, she discovered a bag of gizzards in its cavity.  She tossed them in the garbage, doused the meat with chicken soup to mask the now-horrendous smell and served all her new in-laws. She was too nervous to eat…and everyone else developed violent food poisoning.

The Solution: If something doesn’t pass the sniff test, throw the whole thing out and order a pizza. New family tradition, coming up!


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