When I think of Thanksgiving I think of family and memories. We have spent so many years gathering around the family table and it has been some of the best times ever. As we reminisce each year we always bring up the year that Dad almost blew up the house. Yes, that is what I said, we really feared for our lives that day. Not only did he destroy the turkey that year he ruined the air handler outside too. He decided that he wanted to deep fry a turkey and didn’t follow all of the directions. He overfilled the oil pot and when he dropped the turkey in the oil that poured over the top burst into flames. If that had been it we could have endured it but it started a chain reaction of events that was nothing but horrifying. The flames quickly spread to the picnic table, chairs, and bushes. Dad ran for the fire extinguisher but by the time he returned the air handler cover had melted too. It was made of hard plastic and the top of it was a mess. Once the fire was out and everyone calmed down we started thinking of how bad it could have been. We ended up ordering Chinese for dinner that year and Dad had to contact the HVAC dealer the next morning to give him an estimate on fixing the HVAC unit. Thankfully the homeowners insurance paid for the repairs and Dad gave up the idea of deep frying a turkey ever again. We can laugh about this all these years later and we have had many good memories to replace that awful one.