At this point, the turkey is pretty much the only thing that makes us think of Thanksgiving, which is sad because we usually think of food. But at any big family gathering, it’s hard to keep everyone calm and friendly long enough to say “thank you.”
A woman shared the tragic tale of a ruined Thanksgiving dinner after her daughter’s boyfriend stole the turkey. A year later, she shared an update to the whole story that was unfortunately just as sad. People on the Internet tried to help and leave nice messages for OP, who had to deal with a truly awful family gathering.
Thanksgiving is supposed to be a time for family, friends, and lots and lots of delicious food But this past Thanksgiving, something crazy happened that ruined our family’s big meal. What happened, you ask? Well, I’m just going to come right out and say it – one of our Thanksgiving dinner guests actually stole our turkey right off the table! I kid you not. They just up and took our beautiful roasted bird, carving knife still stuck in its breast, and walked right out the front door without saying a word. Can you believe the nerve of some people?!
Let me back up a bit and give you some background on how this whole debacle went down Every year my family hosts Thanksgiving dinner at our house We go all out – there’s a huge spread of food with multiple main dishes and more side dishes than you can count. The star of the show is always the turkey. We get the biggest, juiciest bird we can find and I spend hours prepping it and roasting it to perfection.
This year was no different. I woke up at the crack of dawn to get the turkey in the oven and spent all morning basting it and tending to it. By the time our guests arrived in the afternoon, the whole house smelled amazing thanks to that turkey roasting away.
We all sat down to eat around 4pm. Everything was going great – people were raving about the food, especially the turkey. We were passing around the platters, chatting and laughing, just having a nice time together. After the initial food free-for-all, as usually happens at big meals, people started to settle into eating and conversing. I got up from the table to grab another beer from the kitchen. I wasn’t even gone 5 minutes, but when I came back the turkey was just…gone.
At first I thought someone had simply moved it to keep it warm or something. But a quick scan of the table didn’t reveal it anywhere. I walked into the living room – no turkey. I checked the kitchen – no turkey. Finally my aunt noticed me poking around looking confused and was like “Uh, where’s the turkey?” Everyone stopped talking and also realized it had vanished.
We were literally scratching our heads until my brother-in-law Mark sheepishly cleared his throat. “Um, yeah, Ron took it about 10 minutes ago. Just picked it up and walked out.”
Ron is a friend-of-a-friend who got invited because we had extra space at the table. None of us know him very well. We all just stared at Mark waiting for an explanation.
“Yeah, so Ron said something about how dry the turkey was and how he was going to take it home and salvage it into soup or something. And then he just…left. With the turkey.”
We were flabbergasted. And also furious. What gives someone the audacity to insult the chef and then STEAL the main dish right off the table?! It was easily a $60 bird too, not to mention all the time and effort I put into preparing it!
After we got over the initial shock, we tried calling and texting Ron but he didn’t answer of course. So there went our beautiful Thanksgiving turkey. My parents ended up ordering pizza to make up for the missing main dish. It was a weird, disjointed end to what had started as a really lovely meal.
I’m still mad when I think about what Ron did. How can someone be so rude and inconsiderate? The whole episode definitely put a damper on our holiday. I did some asking around after the fact and found out Ron has a history of odd behavior like this. Next time I’m going to be more careful about who gets an invite to our dinner!
Chris exhibited some indicators of being antisocial
While we don’t have all the evidence, it would appear that “Chris” exhibits many signs of truly antisocial behavior. Theft is a pretty clear one, exacerbated by the fact that he would later taunt other family members about it. However, stealing an entire turkey out of the oven is almost impressive, as it’s not exactly a small dish. It’s a multi-pound bird that is no doubt very hot to the touch, difficult to carry, and harder to maneuver.
We don’t have any proof of what “Chris” did later, but he seems to have a grudge against the world and has gone out of his way many times to make someone’s day worse. There were many dishes he could have easily stolen if we wanted food. Instead, he tried to take the hardest to move things to ruin the party for everyone else.
People mess up their turkey every year, the breach of trust was the main tragedy
That being said, most people might think it’s weird to have Thanksgiving without a turkey. Some people might read OP’s story and wonder why it was so important, since Thanksgiving usually means there is enough food to last for weeks. For most people, Thanksgiving is the only time of the year they will actually take the time to roast and prepare the huge bird.
Trust has been broken, and OP’s daughter seems to be going along with this young man’s clearly illegal ideas. This is the real tragedy. It is always very hard when a child breaks your trust because you were the first person they ever trusted. Even worse, “Mary” does not seem to understand that this fellow is, by and large, bad news. Another update from OP (see below) showed that not much had changed even after a year.