What's the world coming to?

It haunts me to this very day. Sometimes I pretend it didn't even happen.

Thanksgiving Day, 2005, was a day when the world stood still; when blood fell from the sky and rained upon our children; when our souls turned black as coal and collapsed with agony; when the Waldorf salad sitting on our kitchen counter sprouted a hand and began writing what Waldorf salad experts now believe was a suicide note.

But worst of all, it left millions of people across the nation with the burning question, "What will happen next?"

The day started off as most Thanksgivings in the past had. I rolled out of bed at the stroke of noon and slithered to the dining room table just in time for the festivities to begin. These festivities usually involve eating plateful after plateful of food and falling into a sluggish state of euphoria until we fall asleep and have dreams doctors usually associate with heroin addicts --heroin addicts who also sleep in nuclear waste.

"I got up kind of late this morning too," my grandma said as she set down her world-famous sweet potatoes right in front of me. "Around 7:30 a.m."

All of a sudden, the announcer on television said something so horrifically shocking, even the turkey seemed to twitch with anxiety.

"We have a breaking Fox News Report. MTV Newlywed stars Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey have decided to end their three-year marriage, according to the stars' publicists. Next up: A triple-dog dare turns to tragedy this morning when a man was killed after trying to run across a busy Florida interstate in a chicken costume. We'll also find out why NASA scientists are saying my voice causes monkeys to eat themselves."

My stepdad stopped mixing the mashed potatoes and looked up with a tormented expression glued to his face. My mom, in her terrified confusion, put the bite of turkey she was stealing up into her nose. My sister began shooting green bean casserole at everyone in a rage of fury with the green bean casserole gun I had made at summer camp several years back.

My grandma, blissfully unaware of the former couple's status in modern society, continued eating her corn casserole.

"That poor man in his chicken costume," she said. "What a sad shame."

"Nick and Jessica split up?" my stepdad said as he looked at us, hoping we could build a time machine so that he could go back and encourage counseling for the two.

None of us were paying attention to him, though. My sister in fact had already left the house shooting green bean casserole at cars off of a nearby overpass, and I only realized this after I saw "unidentified woman shooting cars with green bean casserole" scroll across the news ticker on TV.

After everyone was done going temporarily insane, we were finally able to sit down and enjoy what was left of our Thanksgiving meal. Sadly, a majority of the green bean casserole had to be taken to a crime lab and we all had to have our stomachs pumped after my stepdad sprinkled rat poison pellets into the mashed potatoes instead of salt.

And the poor Waldorf salad continued to sit on the counter, untouched, as he asked the pumpkin pie to proofread his suicide note.

Contact Sam at sdereign@ semissourian.com.