Thanksgiving

Poor decision for the Thanksgiving holiday season.

Many of you may know already that my family no longer celebrates Thanksgiving, but, for those of you unaware, starting when I was 14 years old, people started dying over the Thanksgiving holiday. People like my grandmother, my great-grandmother, my 2nd or 3rd cousin, my mother's best friend's mother...it was disturbing. At some point my mother decided that our Thanksgiving was killing people and we should stop doing it.
Oddly enough, this worked.
Weird, right?
But two or three years ago, my mother decided it was safe and that we should have a big dinner on Thanksgiving, but without turkey, just in case. Here is where we get to the heart of the story. Poor decision #1 is obviously having Thanksgiving in the first place. Poor decision #2 was that my mother decided she was going to cook. She was going to bake a green bean casserole like her grandmother used to make for Thanksgivings. You may be familiar with this particular recipe as it is on the back of Campbell's cream of mushroom soup. You basically pour canned green beans and canned soup in a casserole dish, dump boxed/canned fried onion bits on the top and bake it. It's actually pretty good although my mother and I are the only people in the family who will eat it so I really don't know why she got this into her head. But starting in September of that year, it was in her head and wouldn't leave. "This year we will have Thanksgiving. And I will make GREEN BEAN CASSEROLE." "I will not eat green bean casserole," said my father. "I will not eat it on a boat I will not eat it with a goat, I will not eat it with a mouse in a house, I do not like it Sam-I-Am!"
Maybe I am getting this story confused with another.
Anyway, maybe once a week between September and November my mother would announce "I will be making green bean casserole! And it will be like my grandmother's! And I will make it! All by myself!"
Obviously I was terrified. This was clearly going to end as terribly as any green bean casserole could. So, sometime around mid October, I went to the grocery store and bought a frozen green bean casserole and hid it in the back of the freezer.
As Thanksgiving came nearer and nearer, my mother's announcements became more frequent. We were GETTING this green bean casserole, guys. And it was going to BE AMAZING. My mother went out and bought cans of Campbell's cream of mushroom soup in the most ceremonious way possible and lined them all up in the pantry at eye level so we could see them whenever we opened it. The onion ring bits were bought and stored in the same way.
Thanksgiving was approaching. We were all growing increasingly concerned about this green bean casserole. But I had my back up frozen casserole in the freezer, so I sat tight.
The morning of Thanksgiving, my father ran around cooking all kinds of fancy complicated things. My mother waited happily until early afternoon to put her casserole in the oven so it would be hot. I was upstairs in my room when I heard a cry.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGG"
That is approximately how it was spelled.
I ran down the stairs to see who had burned their face on the oven and found my mother crying against the kitchen table with my father looking on, lost and sad.
The moment I saw the scene, I knew what had happened.
"You forgot to buy the green beans, didn't you?"

May your mother never look at you with as much sadness and despair as mine did that day.

We looked at the clock. It was about 10 minutes past the time every grocery store in the United States closes on Thanksgiving day. I said, "Not to worry!" and pulled out my frozen green bean casserole. There was a moment of silence as both my parents looked at me. Then, simultaneously, my father began to laugh and my mother began to yell. "YOU HAVE NO FAITH IN ME! HOW DARE YOU BUY THAT! I WAS GOING TO MAKE IT!" and I said, "All right, well, make it." So my mother quieted down. My father did not.
The day continued on. Soon guests arrived. Shortly after the rest of the food was laid out I remembered the casserole and stuck it in the microwave for 10 minutes.
After maybe 7 minutes, I began to be violently ill. Repeatedly. I left everyone downstairs and then spent the next two days vomiting and crying and sure I was going to die.
Thank God we didn't serve the turkey. You all realize I would be dead, right?
After two days of this I felt well enough to go down the stairs and into the kitchen to heat up some soup. I opened the microwave.
"AFTER ALL THAT YOU GUYS JUST LEFT MY GREEN BEAN CASSEROLE IN THE MICROWAVE????"

Let's make this interactive. Please comment with your favorite Thanksgiving story.