The holiday turkey carcass triggered the trouble.

The problem at a holiday isn’t only what to cook and how to cook it, but what family and friends participate in after the meal. For instance, I might wear my Komfort Fit elastic waistband clothes only to find the host rounded up bicycles for everyone for an after-dinner bike marathon. Knowing this, I can pace myself at the dessert table.

I propose a Compatibility Quiz be taken before accepting an invitation as a holiday dinner guest or serving as a host/hostess. Circle your answers.

After a holiday meal, one expects to enjoy:

• Vivaldi, Chopin

• TV football game

• Marathon sports event — guests participate (bike, hike, climb, run, etc.)

If one hears what sounds like a Boeing 747 taking off cross-wind at the Portland Airport, it’s:

• Uncle Henry, belly up, snoring on the couch

• Family dogs banned to a back bedroom

• The Left-Overs, a rock band that plays with a backdrop of a Sears Craftsman Deluxe automotive tool chest in the garage

If a roar of anguish erupts as though a biker gang invaded the neighborhood, the sound came from:

• TV viewers when the opposing team scored a touchdown

• A nap-deprived 2-year-old who can’t find blankie and discovers on

his dinner plate a speck of gravy touching a green bean

When you see the word “organ,” you think of:

• Bach fugue

• Turkey giblets in a white plastic bag

What’s a giblet?

• Second baseman for the New York Mets

• Turkey parts including liver, heart, gizzard

A gizzard is part of the digestive tract of turkeys, crocodiles, alligators, earthworms and grasshoppers. (A grandchild and I looked it up on Wikipedia when we weren’t sticking olives on our fingers or dissecting turkey heart chambers.)

What is done with the giblets?

• Cooked, chopped, and made into giblet gravy

• Cooked, chopped, and fed to the dog

• Unopened white bag tossed into the garbage

After dinner, family and friends:

• Watch football games on TV

• Nap

• Toss around a football in the yard

• Play board games

• Take a 2-mile hike

(Coming from a family of board game devotees, I found it imperative to know the host family belonged to the marathon hikers when offered a second helping of pie.)

While dinner clean-up is underway, you prefer to entertain a:

• Teething tot

• Tantrum-prone toddler

• Surly teen banned from electronics for the day

• Politically active Aunt Edna pushing a petition to ban land mines and green

bean bake

What grosses you out?

• A kid with olives on each finger passing the bowl of mashed potatoes

• Runny noses

• Uncle Rupert’s dentures sitting on the TV remote

Leftover turkey should be:

• Eaten at midnight with a side of congealed dressing, the culinary equivalent of a bowling ball

• Chopped with feline nibbles and fed to the cat

End of the meal, what to do with the turkey carcass?

• Boil it into a rich broth to make soup (Aunt Edna comes from the school of turkey bone soup)

• Toss it into the garbage

During clean-up the hostess said, “Throw out the carcass.”

The problem for Aunt Edna surfaced at airport security. She triggered alarms when a TSA agent caught her trying to smuggle in the turkey carcass taped to her chest.