A note about potatoes (a continuation of worthless trivia)

I wanted to include this on my last worthless trivia post, but, well, there’s a story here for it all to make sense.

The worthless trivia fact: “You can’t get gigantic potatoes in Idaho, home of the Idaho Russet.”

To explain…

My stepdad is from Idaho. I’ve heard all kinds of stories about how the school year was altered so they could go out for the potato harvest without missing school, all that kind of fun stuff.

The summer of 1989, we went out on a three-week long vacation, and one of the many places we stopped was in Idaho Falls, Idaho, so we could meet my stepdad’s family and see where he grew up.

Mom was thrilled. See, my family, we’re what you might call carb-aholics. If it’s starchy or sugary and Dr. Atkins says you shouldn’t eat it – then my family wants it. It should come as no surprise, then, that Mom couldn’t wait to order a giant baked potato from a restaurant while we were in Idaho. She had Russets before, after all, you can buy them in any grocery story, but it’s always better when you go to the source.

Here we are, sitting out at dinner and Mom’s plate is set down in front of her. Her potato is no bigger than her fist. Mom is shocked.

Being the wonderful woman that she is, she didn’t take it out on the waitress. Shoot, it’s not her fault. She didn’t even send it back to the cook, demanding a bigger one. Nope. What did she do? She turned to my stepdad and inquired about this sad-looking potato sitting in front of her.

Without missing a beat, and serious as a heart attack, he replies, “Well, we ship all the good ones out.”

To this day, 21 years later, my mom still tells that story. But wait, we’re not done yet.

After my mom’s disappointing dinner, we met my stepdad’s mother. What did my mom do? She jumps all over this woman, demanding to know what happened to the “good” potatoes you’re supposed to be able to get in Idaho. Without missing a beat, she replied, “Well, we ship all the good ones out.”

Of course.