The Worst Day to Shop For Thanksgiving Dinner

You would think that going to the grocery store on the night before Thanksgiving would be a kamikaze mission. Actually, it's not the worst time to go.

That's right, all the crowded parking lots, bare shelves, and middle-aged woman throwing down over the last can of cranberry sauce don't show up on Wednesday. The worst day to shop for Thanksgiving dinner is the Tuesday before the holiday.

Why Tuesday? Because everyone just assumes that Wednesday will be horrible, so they try to beat the crowds by going a day earlier.

"Everyone thinks that on Wednesday they will contend with nightmare crowds, so they all try to beat the rush by shopping Tuesday," Michael Ruhlman says in his book Grocery: The Buying and Selling of Food in America.

"The bottom line is this, and it’s the mantra I want all anxious cooks out there to repeat continually: Everything will be fine. Really. Everything will be fine. Really."