Potato heads and loose chips

I wash up at the kitchen sink.

Next to me, Nonna leans on the counter for a closer look at the gimmicky, techy photograph frame, the one with the chip and the constant rolling pictures.

“Where is dat one den?” she asks with a quivering pointy finger for emphasis. I lean to the left but I’ve already missed it.

“Um what was it of?”
“You know.”

I guess. As the current image rolls away and try to calculate which would have been the one before it? If there are 78 photographs on the chip and we’re about half way through, so they’re about three or four years old, so that would have been our trip to England so that would have been….
“Ooo what about dat one den?” she asks with a quivering pointy finger for emphasis.

I lean to the left but I’ve already missed it. “Um what was it of?”
“You know.”

I pout and reach for the sack of potatoes to peel so that I re-use the water, even though it’s still a bit tepid.

“What about dat one den?” I lean to the left and we bump shoulders accidentally and face each other. “Wot?”
“Um?”
“Dat one?”
“Er?”
“In your………..hand.”
“The potato.”
“The potato. What about the potato.”
“Is it American?”
“Er……yes……we’re in America…..I think it’s safe to say that this is indeed an American potato.”
“No!”
Beam me up Scotty!
“No?”
“I mean…..is it one of those……..what is it……begins with an ‘i’?”

I think. I think hard. What is a vegetable that looks like a potato but begins with an ‘i’? When Nonna’s son walks in looking ever so slightly dazed, I lean backwards, so that I can interrupt his path, stare at him and give him ‘the look.’ He startles in response, “what?”
I whisper, “if you don’t answer the next fifty questions I swear I won’t be responsible for my actions!” I wave the peeler in front of him for emphasis.
“Oh right. MORNING MUM!” he bellows putting an arm around her shoulders just to startle her.
“Be gentle!” I snap as she wobbles to regain her balance.
“Ooo what about dat one den?”
“Dunno.”
“I’m not askin you, I’m asking Maddy. Maddy, what about dis one den?”
I glare at her son who sputters, “well I don’t know do I?”
“Maddy, is dat a mouse picture?”
Her pronunciation of ‘picture’ is exquisite.

I relent.

I will explain the mouse picture to both of them for umpteenth time.
“Well…..it’s a VOLE……do you remember?”
“A what?”
“VOLE!”
“Oh yes. I remember you said dat. Was it really in the house?”
“YES.”
“How did it get dere den?”
“THE CAT BROUGHT IT IN AS A PRESENT.”
“Which one?”
“NOT THESE CATS, THE CATS WE HAD BEFORE, 5 YEARS AGO.”
“Oh yes. Jasper and Meadow. I remember. They were beautiful cats too.”


Sharp as a tack!

"! Idaho!"