The Street Potato

The Street Potato as of August 6, 2023

Martha and I were at the Worker’s Tap with Andrea talking about the micro-neighborhood of the four square blocks that encompass the Tap, her house, and our place. I mentioned The Street Potato in that way you remove detail when talking about something that has an extensive entry in your brain but you are talking to someone who might not know what you’re talking about or possibly think you’re somewhat crazy if you talked about it in the detail you think of it. To be clear – I knew Andrea would be down with it, but didn’t want to assume she had noticed it.

“Oh you mean the one up on Ankeny??”

Yeah, she had noticed it.

Instantly, all three of us dropped our filters and started comparing notes about the life of The Street Potato in full detail.

The Street Potato lives (died?) on a short block lined by two generic, new-construction apartment buildings. The building to the north has a half-block-long garage door and a bunch of balconies full of stuff but never people. The smaller building to the south has a row of street-level windows, most of which have a cat or evidence of a cat in them. On the sidewalk in front of the row of cat windows, some time in the early spring – possibly even the late winter – a large, apparently-cooked sweet potato appeared on the sidewalk. At least half of it was somewhat in the sidewalk – stomped or splattered into the concrete such that The Street Potato was not about to roll away. Since then, it appears to have taken up permanent residence in that spot.

My theory of The Street Potato

I think it was thrown or otherwise ejected from a window

Evidence:

• I believe about 75% of it flattened upon contact with the sidewalk.
• The force to de-cohere so much of a good-sized sweet potato requires more acceleration than it would get by simply being dropped from the carrying height of an average adult.
• It landed about ten feet from the building, farther than it would have if it simply fell.
• This also means it was probably fully cooked.

It embodies the universe’s infinite capacity for change.

• As I recall, it started out as recognizable sweet potato, sticking out of the sidewalk like it had clipped through it in a video game.
• Someone stepped on it within the first few weeks of its life on the sidewalk.
  • This means they were probably looking at a cute cat in the window, or the abject emptiness of the giant garage door.
• Since being stepped on, it has been functionally two-dimensional.
• It is at least 4 months old.
  • I am writing this in August. It was definitely there in April. I don’t know what this means.

Martha has a different theory – the potato fell from a bag while being carried to or from some sort of dinner function, and the potato-dropper immediately slipped in the potato, grinding it into the sidewalk, perhaps with the classic slapstick slipping-on-a-banana pratfall.