When Ben Blackmore, a seventh grade student at Charlotte Central School, was asked to tell a story to his class, he immediately knew which one to choose. “The Potato Story is the funniest story that I know,” Ben says. “And it’s the one story that no matter how many times I hear it, it doesn’t get less funny.”
The Potato Story
As told by Ben Blackmore
Grade Seven, Charlotte Central School
This story occurs in the early 1970s, when my dad is about 12 or 13 years old. He is playing a violently competitive game of tag in his friend’s basement.
The basement is the kind of old basement that feels familiar. It is not huge, but it is easily big enough to play an exciting game of tag. The one rule that the two have decided on is the game’s boundaries. There is only one boundary – the entrance. You cannot leave the basement.
Soon enough, of course, Dad finds that he has fallen for the oldest trick in the book and has been cornered. He is standing at the top of the stairs, about to cross the boundary, with his friend waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs. He frantically searches for an escape, and his eyes set on his only chance: the enormous sack of potatoes on the stairs next to him. Without thinking of the possible and inevitable consequences of this one simple action, he gives the sack a nice Kung-Fu-inspired kick.
With an avalanche-like movement, the potatoes roll down the stairs toward their target, dad’s friend and aggressor. Upon being buried, the friend becomes irate. They are in deep trouble now, whether they like it or not. Dad’s friend flings a particularly soft potato up the stairs.
“I hate this game!” he screeches.
Dad thinks fast and opens the door. Splat! The potato makes one bone-jarring, ear- wrenching noise before it becomes one with the kitchen.
“Oh no,” Dad murmurs. “I really do hate this game.” He begins to tiptoe off to get the water balloons hidden in the cabinet. A very angry voice emerges from the basement.
“I’m gonna getcha,” it rages. “I’m gonna getcha, Chaz!”
Dad stuffs the water balloon stash in the plastic bin on the now potato-painted countertop and runs to the furthest place from the basement he can think of, one where his friend could never find him – the roof.
An hour later, his friend is still searching. He has begun to calm down, although he is still dreading how long he will be grounded when his parents get home. Probably years, he thinks pessimistically. Maybe six months, if I’m lucky.
Dad’s friend walks out on the driveway to check there. He hears some shuffling above him. He looks up. In the trees? No, only birds in the trees. The telephone pole? “No, don’t be stupid,” he thinks to himself. He doesn’t even look there. Then, he looks at the only other solid object above him. “The roof. He’s on the roof,” Dad’s friend thinks, and his anger flares back up.
“Chaz?” he calls out.
No answer.
On the roof, Dad uses the only weapon he has against his intruder. He flings the crate with the balloons over the edge of the roof. Splash! Dad peers over the edge and finds that he has a very wet, angry friend under him.
"No one knows where my water balloon stash is other than the neighbors!” Dad’s friend realizes. “That … that wasn’t Chaz!”
To his surprise, Dad sees his friend grab a baseball bat and begin to walk toward the obviously innocent neighbor’s house. Dad winces as his friend takes out his anger on the neighbor’s mailbox. Then, almost immediately after, the neighbor does the same to the mailbox at Dad’s friend’s house.
With perfect timing, a familiar car pulls into the driveway. It is Dad’s parents. He is safe from the two crazies below him with baseball bats. For now.
