Choose Potato

Story by Sarah Butkovic

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My favorite story to tell is perhaps the dumbest. It’s a tradition that started the night of Halloween, 1978. I remember it being a rather tepid night— lissome trees idled calmly down the block, strung-up with papier mâché skulls and pumpkins nestled amongst the leaves, and stepping outside felt like entering the cloudy broth of long-forgotten stew, a lukewarm bowl valiantly waiting for someone to pick up the spoon and start slurping. Ravens swooped like catafalques and humid twilight air sung with the giggles of trick-or-treaters.

It was seven o’clock. I’d just come home from a shift at the diner, and my feet were already aching from eight hours of taking orders and whirling around with my little notepad. Service had been slow that day—which would’ve normally dampened the mood because it meant fewer tips— but it was impossible to be dour on a day like Halloween. It was the one night of the year I could still feel spry, imbued with old childhood fascination that crawls out of every adult in the middle of the night while they sleep. They go to bed believing the myth of the Headless Horseman and wake up with a stack of paperwork denser than underground strata. Whatever traces of lingering magic are then swept away by the pulpish hell of corporate suits with faceless, bulbous heads.