In 1999, our second Thanksgiving together, we hosted dinner for eight of our friends. My partner Mike organized and cooked what looked like a fantastic feast of Turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, green beans and gravy. My sole responsibility was to prepare the cranberries.

Pretty simple, right?

All of his work was done, with the turkey resting on the counter, the dressing, potatoes and gravy all warming on the stovetop in their respective pots. My job was to boil water, add sugar and cranberries and voila ... cranberry sauce.

My only problem, we had no more pots available as all the other savory dishes were occupying them. No problem, I found a Pyrex casserole dish, filled it with water and began boiling the water. With the water at a steady boil, sugar was added along with cranberries, all is humming along just fine.

Did I say humming?

A strange hissing sound started to emanate from the syrupy concoction. Mike questioned the noise but I just chalked it up to the cranberries expanding in the boiling water. After all what else could it be? I have a Pyrex casserole dish rated for oven use ... oops "OVEN USE" not stove top use.

BANG! The sound of exploding glass as the resulting shrapnel lodges itself in the turkey, dressing, potatoes and gravy. Boiling molten sugar water cascades across the stove creating a crimson waterfall onto the kitchen floor.

In an instant, the beautiful feast was rendered inedible, our stove ruined, and our kitchen floor looked as if a grisly crime had just occurred. Thank God it was just cranberry sauce. Given the magnitude of my transgression, it's a miracle real blood wasn't spilled.

(Editor's note: This is one of the five finalists in our Thanskgiving Dinner Disaster contest sponsored by Vallerga's Markets. Read this and the other four entries, then vote for your favorite in our online poll. The winner of $100 to Vallerga's will be announced Tuesday, Dec. 2)