One Potato Two Potato

After having had a conversation with a friend about how I could make my hot weather walks more physically productive and less hindered by perspiring, she sent me a card in the mail and personally delivered a black nylon mesh t-shirt that she was sure would help. The card suggested that I could derive more muscle tone if I carried a sack of potatoes in each hand, while I walked. This is what I wrote back.

Thank you for the card. I know you meant well but I now have a bone to pick with you as a direct result of what was contained therein.

I pondered your exercise suggestion of carrying 2 sacks of potatoes while walking and decided to give it a try. I was down in Chinatown and went into one of the grocery stores to find the two largest potatoes available. They each weighed a pound. Yes, I know that isn’t much to carry but my intent was to start out slowly and work my way up to 'greater weight'. (commit the last 2 words to memory)

I left that store, with one potato in each hand, and headed east across Dundas St. to the Eaton Centre. It was a very hot and humid day. I was sweating profusely. Several times I would have to stop and remove the nylon mesh t-shirt I was wearing (given to me by some blonde bimbo who swore up and down that it had magical antiperspirant properties), and wring out the excess brine that was once a part of me. Have you ever tried wringing out a wet t-shirt with a one pound potato in each hand? Have you ever worn a wet t-shirt? If so, do you have photos?

I finally made it to the cool, comfortable environs of the Eaton Centre. Having strolled and browsed the shops on the first floor for a while, potatoes in hand(s), I then took the escalator to the mezzanine floor. Again, I strolled and browsed, beginning to notice the quizzical looks from those wondering why this man had a large potato in each hand? So I found a good location, where there was lots of foot traffic. and began to juggle the potatoes. Apparently, people are not impressed by the sight of a man juggling just two potatoes? But one little 82 year old lady gave me a quarter (and her phone number).

Deciding it was time to leave (at the insistence of mall security), I made my way back to the escalator. On my descent, I spied a woman down below on the ‘up’ escalator wearing a very revealing tank top. The view from my vantage point was spectacular. My excitement grew as we slowly approached. My anticipation and excitement were sadly premature and misguided. It was a man in a pony tail with extreme glandular issues. The shock and disappointment caused me to drop the potatoes. They rolled down the escalator steps below me. At the very bottom, they first got caught in the teeth of the receding steps and then were completely pulled into the mechanism, disappearing from sight. I reached the bottom and stood there mourning the loss of Bud & Spud (you can’t carry two potatoes around for a couple of hours without getting to know them).

As I stood at the foot of the escalator, I looked up at the oncoming steps, and, in a state of incredulity, I saw my potatoes making their way back to me! Instead of whole potatoes though, they were returning as fresh cut french fries! I made ready to gather them all up before they were again swallowed up by the receding steps at the bottom of the conveyance. With one pound of fresh cut potatoes in each hand, I exited the Eaton Centre.

It was still extremely hot outside so I decided to end my adventure and make my way to the subway to go home. I stood sheepishly on the platform, holding two fistfuls of fresh cut french fried potatoes. I got on the northbound train and found a seat. The man sitting next to me kept looking at what I was holding and finally summoned up the nerve to say “Can I ask why you are holding two handfuls of raw french fries?”. I smiled and replied “Obviously you can, because you just did” (he was not amused). I then explained that these fries had been in the family for two hundred years and that I was on my way to The Antique Road Show to find out if they were as valuable as I was hoping them to be. He wondered why they had not gone brown. I informed him that these were a now extinct form of potato that were originally dark brown on the inside but tended to lighten with age. At first he was skeptical, but, once I employed a reference, in my explanation, to Michael Jackson, he seemed to be more accepting of the story.

I got off the subway at Eglinton and onto the bus that would soon carry me, and Bud & Spud’s offspring, back home. My stop arrived and I disembarked the bus. It was so very hot out there. I waited for traffic to clear so that I could cross Eglinton Ave. from south to north. I stepped off the curb onto the road and went about 15 steps when I was abruptly startled by a very frantic truck horn warning me of pending danger. I looked up to see that a large oil tanker was bearing down on me at great speed. I could hear the screeching of the brakes and I let go of the cut potatoes while diving headfirst back in the direction of the sidewalk. Luckily I managed to avoid being struck by the tanker but, due to the driver applying full force to the brakes while travelling at high speed, the trailer jackknifed and overturned. The large tank detached, rolled off the trailer, and violently collided with the roadway. The impact caused the tank to rupture, and the oil came pouring out onto the road surface. Due to the extreme heat we had been experiencing, that oil was very hot. It had poured into a depression in the road where the potatoes were also situated. I could hear the sizzle and see the bubbles. My travelling companion fries were now fully cooked! I gathered them up, went home, and ate them.

So thank you for your fitness suggestion, which caused me to gain TWO POUNDS!!