Fries
The variety and scope of french fries produced in this country is
truly horrifying and blasphemous. Shoestring, wedge cut, crinkly, curly,
spicy, cheesy, the list goes on and on. There's a theory going around which
I just made up that says that there is a one-to-one relationship between
subatomic particles discovered and french fry variations created. Think
about it. A while back they finally pinned down the "top" variety of quark,
(don't ask) and that same week I found a place that serves "Irish Cut Fries."
Weird. Eerie. B-
Toy Heads
Not that these are actually made out of potatoes any more. And
they don't put a lot of work into making him look like a potato.
Really, he should be called "Mr. Potato-esque Plastic Blob Head." Which I
think is my new band name. But I digress. Better than the usual toy are
plastic face and body parts you can buy and
stick with wild abandon into actual potatoes, giving you
a juicy, starchy quality you don't usually find in playroom fun. B+
Guns
Having seen these
for sale in comic books since I was a kid, I finally bought one. However,
those self-same comic book ads also tried to sell me X-Ray Specs and Onion
Gum so my expectations weren't exactly high. As it turns out the damn things
WORK. Not only did it send little tuber missiles soaring through the air,
it did so with an audible pop, filling me with glee and antisocial
intentions. Even better, the packaging tells you how to CLEAN and OIL your
potato gun. I'm going to train myself to disassemble, clean, oil and
reassemble my potato gun in thirty seconds even in total darkness. A
Chips
I'm going to have to take an unpopular stance here. Potato chips are
kind of gross. Oh, sure, I'll ransack any bags or storage cylinders of chips
you have lying around, but I'll feel remorse afterwards, because potato
chips are pretty much as vile as you can get with a snack food that has no
"creamy filling." Even worse are flavored potato chips; sour cream and
onion chips, barbecue chips, salt and vinegar chips that burn an acidic
hole through your cheeks. I need to go wash now. C-
Baked
Baked potatoes give me eighties flashbacks. Somewhere in there
someone decided that baked potatoes were health food, so they came up with
"potato bars" which are like salad bars with more of an emphasis on chives.
Then various health-conscious young professionals made themselves nice
"healthy" lunches with about a one-to-one relationship of potato and sour
cream, making the humble potato the denial diet food of the decade. It was a
sad time. C
Animals
Yes! Potato animals! Oh, come ON! You remember! Pathetic rainy day
activities! Four pencils, a toothpick, a pink eraser and a potato and you
had an odd malformed creature that could easily haunt your nightmares. This
was always sort of a last resort activity, once you had done the paper
airplanes and the connect-the-dots and you couldn't stand to look at another
damn Colorform. And why? Because it didn't DO anything! You took about
thirty seconds to make and just stood there. Sometimes it's tough being a
kid. C+