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# 7 Thanksgiving Mishaps That Will Make Your Turkey Time Look Good

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by 

[Laura Stampler](https://time.com/author/laura-stampler/)


## Laura Stampler


Nov 25, 2014 10:55 PM UTC

by 

[Laura Stampler](https://time.com/author/laura-stampler/)


## Laura Stampler


Nov 25, 2014 10:55 PM UTC

While Thanksgiving is often touted as a bright, warm time full of family, food, and friendship, not everyone has an Instagram-perfect holiday. To give you that extra bit of Turkey Day ego boost (or schadenfreude), here are 7 Thanksgiving mishaps that we think rank up there as some of the all-time biggest turkeys:

**The Bloomberg Family Had a Crappy Thanksgiving — Literally**Georgiana Bloomberg, daughter of former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, explained her family’s less-than-ideal Thanksgiving, at the Humane Society’s gala Friday. Bloomberg recounted her first Thanksgiving with her 10-year-old adopted Chihuahua, at the New York City Animal Care & Control center. “For Thanksgiving, she got to come to Gracie Mansion,” [_NYMag_](http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/11/mayor-bloombergs-very-shtty-thanksgiving.html)reports Bloomberg said. “And she proceeded to have explosive diarrhea all over the front hall of Gracie Mansion. And we always joke it was her way of thanking the city for deeming her unadoptable.”

**Thief Takes Turkey**  
 A Connecticut man was on his way to a friend’s house on Thanksgiving 2013, turkey and stuffing in-hand, when he got held up at gunpoint, a [local Fox affiliate reported](http://myfox8.com/2013/12/03/man-robbed-of-his-thanksgiving-turkey-at-gunpoint/). Not only did the thief take Jimmy Mulligan’s wallet, but he took the turkey and fixings to boot. After police officers learned that the 911 call was not, in fact, a joke, they felt so bad that they bought Mulligan two Thanksgiving dinners from Boston Market.

**Turkey Takes Down Thief**  
 In 2008, a North Carolina carjacker was served his Thanksgiving turkey early. The Sunday before Thanksgiving, bystanders witnessed a man trying to steal a woman’s keys outside of a grocery store. When he started attacking his resistant victim, onlookers decided to take action and started hitting the thief over the head with a frozen Thanksgiving turkey. [WRAL News](http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/4014605/) reported that police later arrested the carjacker.

**That’s a Big Carving Knife**  
 Police [told NJ.com ](http://www.nj.com/bergen/index.ssf/2013/11/police%5Fmontclair%5Fman%5Fangry%5Fover%5Fthanksgiving%5Fsnub%5Fpulls%5Fmachete%5Fon%5Fnew%5Fmilford%5Ffamily.html)that a Montclair man was arrested after threatening a group of people, who had “excluded” him from their Thanksgiving festivities, with a machete. He was arrested and no one was injured.


**Speaking of Utensils…**  
 Thanksgiving dinner conversations can get heated, but a Maryland woman might have taken the pie in 2012 when an argument ended by her [stabbing her half-brother with a serving fork](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/23/stabbing-with-serving-fork-thanksgiving%5Fn%5F2177840.html). He was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and she was arrested for first-degree assault.

**Catching Fire**  
 Of course, one of the most common holiday disasters is house fires. According to the [American Red Cross](http://www.homelandsecurity.ms.gov/docs/FireSafetyFactSheet.pdf), cooking-related infernos occur twice as often on Thanksgiving than on any other day.

**Deep Fried Disaster**  
 On that note, here’s someone who almost lit himself on fire when he tried to deep fry his Thanksgiving Day turkey:


Bon appetite!

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