Thanksgiving is not far off—my favorite holiday. I’m here today to urge you to plan ahead. Most everyone who runs into trouble on Thanksgiving failed to plan the day like a football coach plans the big game. Show me a woman who forgot to thaw the turkey and I’ll show you a husband who thinks the backyard hot tub would be a fine solution.

I love Thanksgiving stories–overdone turkeys, grumpy uncles, and the movie families who end up at a Chinese restaurant because the day cycled between one disaster and another. My family has always approached the day with a healthy dose of professionalism, as if we’re being filmed in a studio for a show on how not to screw up the day. But then, two years ago, I bought a heavily herbed sausage for my stuffing by mistake and it tasted like I’d foraged woodland shrubs and may have been trying to get everyone stoned. It was horrible. And my stuffing is my Mona Lisa, my one seminal contribution to the world, the one thing I can be proud of when I get to heaven.

And last year, my Turkey was undercooked and we had to cut it up into pieces to roast the rest of the way. Wait, how many times have I roasted a turkey? Forty times or so? I’m tempted to think I’ve lost my touch.

I remember my mother overcooked the turkey one year when I was young and we ate it anyway—as dry and brittle as it was–because we loved her and also because there was nothing else to eat. Family and friends were visiting, and there wasn’t much to be done about it. My father was a big proponent of eating a cook’s mistakes. When I was learning how to bake, I came across the ingredient “egg whites” for the first time, and I reasoned the whitest part of an egg is the shell so I threw the egg shell into the batter and threw out the rest of the egg. After dinner, when I proudly served my cake, everyone wondered what the crunchy ingredient in the cake was. My father, who could be the sweetest man, demanded everyone eat the cake anyway and to smile while they were doing it.

The best stories come from the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line–that sainted place in Naperville, Illinois where 50 home economists stand ready at the phones to save at least 100,000 turkey dinners across the United States each year.

Here’s one of their favorites: when a Talk-Line staffer asked a caller what state her turkey was in–meaning how thawed was it–the caller responded “Florida.”

And I love this one about a thrice-married woman:

The caller explained to Carol Miller, a 20-plus-year Talk-Line veteran, that Thanksgiving with her first husband was a disaster since she forgot to thaw the turkey. She’d also had a problem at Thanksgiving with her second husband, too, when the foil pan she was using bent and slipped out of her hands, landing the bird on the floor. She was hoping the third time would be the charm, so she called the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line to make sure she was doing everything right. Let’s hope she’s still married and that her turkeys have turned out fine.

A lady from Colorado called and asked how long to thaw her frozen Butterball. She proudly shared that her turkey was stored in a snow bank outside, and wouldn’t you know it, it had snowed the night before. It dawned on her during the conversation that she didn’t have a clue which snow bank the turkey was in. The conversation ended when she went on a mission to find her turkey. Hours later, she called back to say her five grandchildren, using five shovels, finally found the turkey in the snow bank.

Most of the calls the Turkey Talk-Line receives are about thawing the bird, so take note. You should really begin thawing a week beforehand, but, as we all know, people don’t always plan ahead. Talk-Line co-director Sue Smith says she gets lots of calls wondering how to do it at the last minute. The answer is to simply put the turkey in cold water for 30 minutes for every pound.

“We’ve had someone call because their turkey was in the hot tub, and asked how long it would take,” Smith said. “We’re like ‘oh, you don’t want to do that.'”

Another thaw story comes from a dad just trying to multi-task and get the bird prepped. The dad had been charged that morning to bathe the twin boys and thaw the turkey. The mom called and said, ‘I just went upstairs and there were my twin boys taking a bath with our turkey.'”

Last year, one of Smith’s favorite calls came from a 92-year-old man whose wife had recently died. He was trying to cook Thanksgiving dinner.

“They celebrated Thanksgiving together for 60 years and they always hosted,” Smith said. “He had never cooked a turkey, his wife had passed away, but he wanted to carry on that tradition. He had five grandkids he was serving. I was on the phone with him for about 40 minutes and walked him through everything. He did call back afterward to let us know that it was a great day. It was an emotional call. And he was so thankful. I’m waiting for him to call back this year.”