By Annie Phun

Editor in Chief

  The winter after my 15th birthday, my uncle asked me to help him prepare our family’s annual Thanksgiving dinner. Therefore, on Nov. 23, I took a reluctant break from reversing my chronic sleep deprivation and woke up at 8 a.m. to the blare of my uncle’s car horn.

  At his house, the task started out easy. I passed my uncle tools and ingredients when he told me to and otherwise stayed out of the way. But then he asked me to watch the turkey while he entertained some guests.

   I told him that I could be trusted with that much responsibility, but he insisted. With a sigh, I acquiesced to his demands. I figured that if anything went wrong, I could blame it on the fact that my uncle left me in charge.

  After two hours, I heard a bell ring and jumped up in excitement before I realizing that it was only the doorbell. Glaring at the oven timer, I trudged into the living room.

  As I opened the door, my eyes landed upon a lady wearing a red coat and holding a cake. I turned to yell to my mom that her friend had arrived before stepping aside to let the lady in.

  Walking back to the kitchen, I heard the unmistakable sound of the fire alarm. Grimacing, I sprinted to the oven to see that my worst fears had come true. My uncle stood over the trash can, throwing away a burnt turkey.

  A wave of disappointment crashed into me as he shook his head. Unable to stand it, I backtracked into the living room. There, I saw the lady in the red coat scanning the room.

  “Looking for someone?” I asked

  “Catherine,” she answered.

  I frowned. “There’s no Catherine here.”

  She looked at me and froze. Gasping, she strode into the kitchen, picked up the cake on the table, and zipped back to the living room and out the door.

  Confused, I asked everyone in the living room if they knew who she was, but no one seemed to know. After asking more questions, I realized that the lady had gone to the wrong house. My cousins and I found it weird that she did not notice earlier since she apparently hugged and greeted a lot of people, but we laughed nonetheless.

  In the end, the lady in the red coat became a story that we told every year, and the turkey disaster was forgotten in the midst of laughter. Needless to say, my uncle never asked me to help out with Thanksgiving ever again.