Burnt chicken and Rotten potatoes

Yesterday was not my greatest cooking day. I think that the "cooking fairies" wanted to humble me because I was so proud of my Thanksgiving accomplishments. I had laid out chicken leg quarters for dinner, I LOVE chicken, so I was so excited. Cory was relaxing, so I told him I would man the grill for dinner and for him to just play his playstation - I could handle it all. Boy was I wrong. I put the chicken on the grill with a little bit of Italian dressing (mine and Cory's favorite). This is something we've done a million times without incident. I went inside to put the rolls in the oven and check the potatoes that were baking and stir the green beans. Innocent enough, right? Well as I opened the door to the patio, I noticed FLAMES coming from under the grill lid. I tried to open the grill and the flames almost engulfed me. I shut the lid and turned the grill off, hoping this would exstinguish the flames. The fire just kept going. Realizing this was not something I could handle on my own, I opened the door and calmly yelled for Cory. He came out and realized that this was major. He rushed into the house to get some water. After the fire was out, all that was left was our burnt to a crisp chicken. I've heard of blackened chicken, but this was way beyond that!!
We brought it inside with the hopes that we could scrape off the skin and eat the chicken - surely it was done. Nope, wrong again. It was just as raw as it was when I put it on there -now explain that to me!!! I was almost in tears, but Cory had the great idea to throw the chicken in the oven for a few minutes to cook the inside. So we sat down to eat our potatoes, green beans and rolls and wait for the chicken. Cory cut into his potato and it was rotten - I had baked a rotten potato. I immediately broke into tears. My family rallied around me and assured me that it was ok. The green beans were gross too for some reason - Cory said that it was all in my head.
The chicken ended up in the trash because we couldn't get it cooked in the middle. The girls had a peanut butter sandwich and Cory had a bowl of Rice Krispies. Dinner was a total bust and the "cooking fairies" definitely brought me back down to earth!!! I ended the night by baking a cake - something I know I can do well.
So here's what I learned - you might can cook almost an entire meal on Thanksgiving from scratch, but if you can't manage to whip out a basic meal of Chicken and potatoes, save the money you were going to use to open up that restaraunt next to Emeril's and go back to the drawing board!!!