Mom and her electric oven...yikes!

Mom always had a gas oven, and was not familiar with electric ovens, especially not self-cleaning models. Well, I had a self-cleaning oven and a Mom who always tried to help. It was my turn to prepare and cook Thanksgiving dinner for the family. For weeks, I planned, shopped and readied the house for our company. Thanksgiving morning my husband would prepare his special stuffing, make the soup and finally wash and get the turkey into the oven. The table was set, side dishes prepared, nuts roasted. All we needed was that big, juicy turkey. We timed it just so, that when the guests arrived the turkey would be ready to come out of the oven and sit before carving while we enjoyed the soup. Mom arrived early to help out. She opened the oven to check on the turkey. "It seems ok", she said A while later I went to check the turkey to see if it needed to be basted, but the oven door wouldn't open. I called my husband to see if he could get the door open. He grinned and said "not until the temperature drops and we can unlock the oven". "Unlock the oven?" " What do you mean unlock the oven?" " The turkey is locked in the oven", he said. " How could that have happened?" My well- meaning Mom decided to clean up some spills around the burners and on the oven door. She accidentally pushed the lever from left to right (from unlocked to lock position). The only way to get the turkey out of the oven was to wait until the temperature dropped and the lever would release. We turned the oven off to get the temperature down quickly. We waited and waited. Finally the lever was able to be brought over to the unlock position and we could release our " hostage turkey"!. The turkey needed to cook a bit more n but this time we kept Mom out of the kitchen. Dinner was late, but we joked about our " hostage turkey" all through dinner. Mom is no longer with us, but every Thanksgiving when the family gets together for dinner, we remember Mom and the "hostage turkey".