The potato that got away

Well, this all might seem quite beside the point (and if you are asking “What point?” I answer: pretty much any point), but I am here to report that, much like the old meatball that rolled off of the table and continued on to have all types of misadventures (I don’t actually recall what misadventures – or how many types there truly were. In fact, I can’t even really recall the melody or the exact line at all that references the meatball and its mighty – or maybe not so mighty – fall. I only remember that a meatball did indeed fall. And then, I think it rolled some places. And in the end, there was something that was no more?): my OWN meatball has rolled off of the table. So to speak. I am using a metaphor of course. A metaphor for . . . a potato and a counter.

Never mind how it happened. It’s no use asking such questions in my household. Only know that it did happen. And this freshly washed and scrubbed potato rolled, as quick as its little scrubbed-clean self could roll, right under the kitchen counter (where a heater vent should have been -- and wasn’t -- in place to stop it) and directly down a heating duct where only a very long and very skinny and purely rubber arm could ever hope to reach it.

I have seen the loss of small bouncy balls and a few batteries and maybe even a TV remote down this hole into our heating ducts – and handled those losses with a quiet, accepting dignity, but the potato? It is just (and no meatball-like song should ever be made about this) have you ever smelled a rotten potato? If you have not, consider yourself lucky, but don’t allow yourself to downplay the state things are in here. There is, perhaps, no worse smell. I fear for this potato. I fear for my home and my senses with this potato stuck down there. Somewhere. I try to entertain some small hope that maybe the heat coming through will shrivel the potato up into a hard dry . . . thing, but the combination of freshly scrubbed wet vegetable and heat . . . sends my reasoning towards . . . rotting.

So, there you have it. That is how things stand around here. I haven’t given up all hope. There is Mike. We all know that when a problem arises, he can, very often, solve that problem . . . should he decide to set his mind to the task. But so far he doesn’t seem to realize the seriousness of our situation. When I called him, frantically suggesting that the only thing to do would be to tear our entire floor apart to reach the section where the potato had likely come to rest, he thought that was a bit extreme and instead offered the hastily concocted plan that I lower Jumpy (Goldie’s guinea pig) down the hole with a rope and haul him back up (in the hopes that he will dutifully be clutching the offending potato in his small talons . . . oh wait, birds of prey have talons. Well. Never mind. Talons. Paws. What does it matter. Talons or no, I have very little faith in Jumpy).

Anyway, that is the end of this post. I know it isn’t a very satisfying conclusion, but we must consider the fact that I have no satisfying conclusion to offer. So, goodnight then. And goodnight little potato – down in the darkness somewhere.