Nasty Potato
by Fisher Cunningham
“Dude, Madison, that is seriously the nastiest
thing I’ve seen in so long. That cannot be okay we’ve
gotta do something about that.”
Madison didn’t look up from his phone, although he did cover his nose with the collar of his
shirt to block the smell. “Just use the tongs or something man. And Leslie, you gotta stop calling it ‘it’.
You’re giving it some kind of personhood like it has
feelings or something.”
“I’m pretty sure that if someone saw this potato without knowing what it was they would think
it’s some kind of animals poop or something.” Leslie
grabbed some metal tongs and hovered them over
what was once a potato attempting to grab it in a
way that would leave the least amount of mess. He
reached deep into the wicker basket at the bottom
of their pantry. It was an old Russet potato that
had been abandoned and forgotten long ago. It was
wrinkled, oozing some kind of dark, syrup like fluid, and giving off an aroma so pungent it could’ve
suggested that something crawled into the basket
and died.
“Man, we were totally supposed to make that
au gratin three weeks ago. How did we even forget?”
Madison said in his muffled voice through his shirt.
“It was your turn to cook, don’t you remember?”
“Oh whatever, you were too busy at that speed
dating thing trying to convince any girl that would
listen that ‘Madison’ is some kind of rugged manly
name.”
Madison dropped his shirt, now seething.
“Well at least I don’t share a name with a 65 year old
lady you work with and constantly hits on guys that
are half her age.”
Leslie stared blankly at Madison and dropped
the tongs. As they clung on the ground he snapped
back, “Dude you know how I feel about her and how
uncomfortable she makes me. Whatever I can’t even
be mad when it’s coming from the guy who’s named
after that chick from Corey in the House.”
“It’s a president’s nam-- you know what I don’t
even care anymore.”
“OK, whatever bro. Tell that to that girl that
put a heart over the ‘i’ in your name.”
The two boys just scoffed and walked away
to deal with the ever-acrid smelling potato that lie
at the bottom of their pantry. The stench billowed
upward throughout the apartment and almost acted
like a physical manifestation of their own complicated transition into adulthood.
