Illustration by David Swann, Star-Bulletin

The thing about turkey is it takes hours to cook. So, if you mess up, it's not easy to recover. And with guests on the way, the stakes are high. These things combine to make a Thanksgiving Day cooking disaster seem like the end of the world.

But Thanksgiving is also about family, friends, fellowship and counting your blessings. These things combine to put that burned/undercooked/missing turkey in perspective.

Perhaps that's why the many entrants in our Turkey Tragedies contest are now able to laugh about their Thanksgiving disasters. On this page are the four top stories. Each writer will receive $75.

Fireworks Award

Dot Saurer, Kailua

A good friend was fixing Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings for his new bride, who was from Canton, China. She didn't know how to cook a turkey and neither did he, but he was full of confidence.

"The big thing he wanted to have was fluffy stuffing like his mother used to make. He thought about it (after all, he had a Ph.D. and could figure out almost everything) and decided all you really needed was yeast. So he added yeast ... a LOT of yeast. After all, he wanted it really fluffy."

If you're familiar with bread-making (he wasn't, and real men don't ask for directions) you know what happens when yeast gets warm. To cut to the chase, the turkey exploded.

"His bride thought it was fireworks to celebrate events like they do in China!"

Lost Cause Award

John Ah Nee, Kaneohe

It was 8 a.m. on Thanksgiving day when John Ah Nee's mother woke him up in a panic because the oven wasn't working and the turkey wasn't cooking.

"I stumbled down the stairs (with a hangover from the night before) to see what I could do, which was nothing. So I was to take the turkey to my sister's to get done cooking.

"Now, I'd never been there before, but I knew the area, got the house number and set off. Upon arrival I noticed her car parked in front. Walking in, I heard the shower running, so like a good brother I put the turkey in the oven, turned it on and left."

Pretty soon the sister called, wanting to know where the turkey was. Turns out, the "good brother" had taken it to the wrong house. "My sister could see our turkey roasting in her neighbor's oven, with no one home and the house locked up tight -- through the kitchen window."

Lucky for him the neighbor didn't step out of the shower while he was still in the house. Lucky, also, that she returned in time to save the Ah Nees' Thanksgiving.

"Moral of the story," concludes Ah Nee: "All townhouses look the same."

Controlled Substance Award

Wanda Hays, Hauula

It was the 1940s in Nashville when Wanda Hays cooked her first turkey -- for her family of six plus in-laws and her own parents. She'd talked to several people about the best way to cook a bird.

"One said to pour cooking oil all over it to keep it moist. OK. I had several bottles of stuff under my sink. I grabbed one, poured it over the turkey."

It was Clorox.

Well, she couldn't afford to throw the turkey away and start over, so she just washed it. Really well. "That was the cleanest turkey in Nashville."

No one, she says, could tell the difference. And, by the way, Hays says pouring oil over the turkey really does work.

Most Horrifying Award

Brenda D. Smith, Honolulu

Warning: This story is not for the squeamish.

Brenda Smith was about 10 years old the year her mother decided she wanted a "really fresh" turkey for Thanksgiving, not the "store boughten" variety. So in the spring, the family took in a turkey -- Tom -- with the idea that he'd become dinner in November.

Tom was a really mean turkey. He chased the kids and terrorized the chickens. No one was sad when Thanksgiving morning came and it was time to catch Tom in a gunny sack and finish him off.

"Mother had heard that the odious chore of plucking turkey feathers would be easier if the turkey was killed by a knife-stick to the brain, vs. the more traditional, chop-the-head-off-with-an-axe ritual. ... My brother and I wrestled with the bird while Mother stuck the knife into his brain through his open mouth. Tom collapsed."

Mom plucked the bird and set it in the roasting pan. "Tom, in a Super Turkey display of will, climbed out of the pan and with whatever remaining dignity a naked turkey can muster, quietly headed for the open back door."

Mom screamed; Dad chased down the turkey and dispatched it on the chopping block. "For some reason, Mother didn't have much interest in eating turkey that year, though everybody else relished the treat ...

"Mother went back to store-bought turkeys in the years that followed."

Disappearing acts

Marlys Werle went to the refrigerator to check on her defrosting 20-pound turkey. It was gone. Turns out her 3-year-old son wanted to show his playmates that he, too, had a turkey. He managed to carry the turkey out of the house and into the neighbor's yard, where he dropped it in their sandbox. Luckily the wrapping was still in place and dinner was salvaged.

Roger Sherman prepared a perfect turkey for his first dinner with his new wife's family. They were from the Philippines and unfamiliar with turkey, so he wanted to make a good impression. Well, he delivered the turkey and went outside to chat with the men. When it was time to eat, his beautiful turkey was missing. "The mother had taken MY TURKEY and cut it up to make adobo."

Compound tragedies

Michael Yee's family was wrapping up a Thanksgiving meal when cousins Morris and Bobo made their wishes on the wishbone and pulled. "The bone slipped out of Bobo's hand and he fell into the table, spilling hot gravy onto Grandma's lap. She let out a yell, swung her arm, knocking out Grandpa's false teeth, which landed upright in little Stephanie's mashed potatoes. After a few seconds, Stephanie started to cry." In an unrelated incident, Grandpa got a turkey bone stuck in his throat, so the holiday finished up in the emergency room.

Patt Spencer and her husband had planned to fix Thanksgiving dinner for his class of 11 university students. They bought a turkey and left it out to defrost. For two days. By Thanksgiving morning it had developed an ugly black spot, which they didn't discover until they were stuffing it. They managed to scare up another turkey, but by the end of the night the yams had exploded, the canned mushrooms were found to be bad and she forgot to bake the pie. Dinner was five hours late.

Powerless

Irlene Torres' father-in-law decided that Thanksgiving Day would be a good time to cut down the coconut tree growing at the edge of his Kalihi Valley property. So while the wives and Mom were preparing the meal, Dad, his five sons and two sons-in-law sawed at the tree. But the tree was stubborn, so one of the sons suggested using a truck to pull the tree down. Of course, the truck did the trick, but the tree fell the wrong way -- right across the power lines. "All of a sudden, our small neighborhood was very quiet -- no TV, no radio, no oven. ... In the quiet that followed we heard a lone neighbor at his front door, 'My turkey's still in the oven and it's not done yet!' "

Alare Palmeira recalls the holiday during Hurricane Iwa. Left without power, her husband cooked the turkey outside, kalua-style. "We ended up cooking 14 turkeys. God surely works in mysterious ways. Fourteen families got blessed that night."

Claire Kriebel and her husband, Bill, received an oven as a wedding gift, and decided to try it out on Thanksgiving. They put their turkey in the oven, then went for a hike with their guests. "Five hours later we arrived home extremely tired and starved. We looked in the oven to see our beautifully cooked dinner and guess what -- I forgot to turn on the oven!"

Questionable ingredients

Bob Jones celebrated Thanksgiving 1972 in Saigon with the U.S. and Vietnamese staffers of NBC and the Associated Press. They'd been covering heavy combat almost daily. "Most of us were thankful for having all our limbs, and I wanted to stage a real American turkey dinner." He and his wife scrounged up the ingredients and took it all to a restaurant for cooking. "It was the English labeling that did us in. The stuffing had been liberally mixed with cinnamon and nutmeg, the pumpkin pie saturated with poultry spice. ... The wine was good. And everyone who attended survived the war. What more could we be thankful for?"

Tim Lien's brother, David, took over the turkey one year, buying it with his own money and handling all the cooking. After several hours of roasting he took it out and poked a thermometer in. It wouldn't go in at first, so he pushed really hard. It broke into pieces and the poisonous mercury dripped all over the bird. "It turns out that the thermometer was the kind to take a sick person's temperature. HELLO!!! ... My brother was fired from all future chef positions and now sticks to basting the turkey only upon Mama's authorization."

Mary Lohmann's mother told her the story of fixing her first Thanksgiving meal for her in-laws. The night before, her husband brought home chestnuts for the stuffing, and also a bag full of tulip bulbs. "Dinner was delicious, especially the chestnut stuffing." Problem was, the next day they couldn't find the tulip bulbs, only a bag of chestnuts. "My mother said her mother-in-law was terrified she had been poisoned ... by her daughter-in-law.!"

Animal tales

Patie Switzer had one turkey and three schnauzers. While her back was turned the dogs got the roasted turkey off the counter and out the doggie door, where the dominant male was gorging himself. No turkey for the family, and worse than that: "My dog was sick for three days and had the worst gas imaginable. Plus we lived on the mainland and it was winter so the windows were shut. No ventilation! We had to leave the exhaust fan on from the stove."

Andrew Lai and his wife set a beautiful Thanksgiving table and were just about to call in all the guests when they heard the 3-year-old shouting "WOOO HOOO." The dog was on the table and had eaten a good amount of turkey, stuffing, yams and mashed potatoes. He'd tried the salad, but spit that out. "Meanwhile, my son was throwing rolls at the dog yelling, 'WOOO HOOO!' "

Sui-Ping Carus was living in the Berkeley Hills of California when she was called on to host Thanksgiving for all the in-laws. She and her husband bought a 24-pound turkey that wouldn't fit in the refrigerator. Since it was so cold out, they decided to let it defrost outside overnight. They didn't take into account the Berkeley Hills raccoons, who made their own feast of the turkey. "I cried at the sight!" Dinner for the humans was a ham found in the freezer and everyone laughed that "raccoons, too, can have a Thanksgiving celebration!"