An Interview with a Potato Guy

I have one of the most intense, stressful, dangerous, and adventurous jobs in the country. Can you hear my sarcasm? I work at a potato factory... Not convinced? Me either...I still think my first day on the job was a bad dream. I should be getting my Doctorate by now! I scoff at my own irony every day I put that hair net on my head.

For eight hours a day, I stare at rows of raw deformed brown things. If I spot one that is really screwed up then I pick it off of the conveyor belt and toss it into an oversized black bin(aka garbage). That's where all the misfits go. The rejects.

  Nobody wants to consume a potato that have two arms and is curved to look like a rotten banana. Though they are perfectly eatable, they aren't the most beautiful. You can find beauty in anything, one random guy once said. Well, he's probably never stared at starchy poop for three years!

I look around at my coworkers. They all have that disappointed expression as if they never thought they would make a living off of throwing away rejected potatoes. They move like robots, with glazes over their eyes.

I, on the other hand, try to make work interesting. Try is the key word. I search for recognizable objects in mounds of potatoes. I've found elephants, airplanes, and presidents. I've found more Abraham Lincoln's than anything, so if you find one in your bag... hate to break it to ya... it's nothing special!

Now let me tell you 'bout my potato collection. That's right, don't judge! I've got a whole room in my mother's basement full of cool looking potatoes. I put them in jars filled with this preservation stuff (don't ask where I find it).

Got one that is shaped as a cowboy boot and even one that is the spitting image of a Ninja Turtle.

See, me and potatoes, we've got a love hate relationship; but even so, sometimes I wonder if that one potato I tossed in the bin could have had the face of Justin Bieber on it or has the features of an Egyptian pharaoh's tomb. You just don't know until you take a better look.

Maybe rejection is unnecessary? I don't know? Like who decided on perfection? I better get back to work. My name's anonymous right?... I still need my job you know...