Why Potatoes Are Our Friends

"...And I'm going to have to get some pliers or something," I said.

"Why?" asked Pocket of Bolts.

"Well last night I went to turn on my reading lamp, and there was a terrific flash, followed by darkness. Oh well, I thought, I was sleepy anyway. So I just went to sleep. But when I woke up, there was the lightbulb in bed with me, minus the bottom part that screws into the lamp. That was still screwed in and I can't get it out."

"It's a good thing you don't thrash around in your sleep like I do," PoB remarked.

Yes, the light-bulb and I shared the double bed peaceably enough, it's true. But as my aunt J. once remarked, there are two kinds of people in the world--those for whom a reading lamp is a necessity rather than a luxury, and those who can't understand that. In general, I am the former.

"Here's what you do," PoB went one. "You get a potato and cut it in half--"

"A potato!?" I interrupted. "I don't have a potato. And besides, how would that help?"

"I am trying to tell you," explained PoB.

I somehow had visions of hooking a pickle up to a battery to get a glowing pickle. New potato-bulb reading light? But doesn't it work with a pickle only because a pickle is acidic? A potato isn't acidic, is it?

"...You make double extra sure that the lamp is unplugged. Then you cut the potato in half and jam the cut side down into the place where the light-bulb goes, and it will give you enough friction that you can unscrew the bottom of the bulb. It's an old home repair trick."

"How about an apple?" I offer. "I have an apple."

"Too juicy," PoB opined.

Now potatoes are not really standard grocery store fare around here. No ovens. And they're just not a general part of the cuisine. Potato stir-fry? Actually, there is a fairly decent potato stir-fry type dish, potatoes stir-fried with cucumbers and little chunks of chicken to be exact. If cooked cucumbers strike you as weird, you're not alone; I'm with you on that. But the dish tastes pretty good actually, and the chicken chunks look so much like the potato chunks, that it's a constant game of hope and expectation. However, I digress.

I am fortunately located in close proximity to an extra fancy grocery store that has so-called "organic" vegetables, some imported from the U.S. even. Not sure the exact provenance of the little bag of Yukon golds (or Chinese knock-off Yukon golds, more likely) that I managed to acquire, but they proclaim themselves "delicious and safe."


I promised PoB that if his trick worked, I would put it on my blog. Of course if it's really as old a trick as that, I'm probably the only one who doesn't know about it. As you can perhaps guess, it did work. Though it took several tries, adjustments to the shape and such. And you really have to jam it in there. But at last:


Pondering how much the potato I would be able to salvage and eat, also how I'm going to go about cooking it, I cleaned the inside of the socket as best I could and screwed in the new lightbulb I'd optimistically bought at the same time as the potato. Incidentally, two lightbulbs cost the same as 4 organic potatoes, about 75 cents. Then I plugged in the lamp. Success! It went on. Then I flipped the switch to turn it off. And it was still on.

It has become a monstrous zombie reading lamp that never sleeps. I'm guessing the flash of light the other night indicated something going wrong with the switch as well as the bulb. PoB is now deeply suspicious of the whole thing. It's true that 220 V electricity is nothing to mess around with. It puts our wimpy 100 or 110 or whatever it is to shame. However, having invested so lavishly in potatoes and light-bulbs, and seeing as I only have another 24 days here, I think I'm going to try to tough it out. After all, the light can be turned off by unplugging it.

PoB says, "I would keep an eye on it!"

And I will. Never know when a monstrous zombie reading lamp, having failed in its first attempt to do away with me by bombarding me with its bulb, is going to sneak up on me with some yet worse dastardly plan...

(And just for Chaz: Boku no imo wa kawakute, ii tomodachi da yo!)