I was cooking a hunk of meat and some fried potatoes yesterday when my friend Jeff came for a visit. He wanted food which is a request dear to my heart so I made more potatoes. As I was chopping the potatoes somehow the name Mr. Potato Head came up and Jeff, recoiling with true or mock horror said, “NO! He makes me feel so SAD! Look what they did to him! They cut off his BODY! They left him with only a HEAD! And they stuck those little prosthetic legs onto his HEAD!!! With nothing but little plastic HANDS sticking out where his EARS should be!!!!”I was laughing so hard, I could feel his compassion for the amputee Mr. Potato Head. But it didn’t stop him from eating the rest of the Potato Family.
I always loved Mr. Potato Head. I think that was one of the genius toy ideas of my generation. Some thousands of people, I would suspect, don't know that we used a REAL potato for the Head of Mr. Potato Head. Yes, we used to PLAY WITH POTATOES!!!
It was the whole point of the toy. When you use a real potato you can stick the ears on anywhere you want and the mouth around to the back...the combinations are endless and FUN. Now, everyone thinks of Mr. Potato Head from Toy Story and he's made of plastic and there is only one hole for his mouth, eyes, etc; With no room for variation or creativity, it makes it kind of a dumb toy, doesn't it?
I also loved Cootie. How I LOVED cootie!!! We could entertain ourselves for an hour playing for body parts to assemble a Cootie and win.
And nobody died in those games except I guess the jury is still out about the body of Mr. Potato head.
1 comment:
Who made up the word cootie anyway? I've always thought it was a weird word. But then again, I come to you for all my word advice because half the words you use I have to look up in the dictionary.
I remember seeing the cootie games but I never played.
p.s.
Dad says the "poopy" dog was the crazy neighbor lady's and that was not it's name, so we are asking mom next.
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