A Short Story By Maureen O’Hara Pesta

Okay, so this is where we’re headed today, Nan said to herself earlier, after the mailbox blew up. Evidently a firecracker delivery had happened after the mail delivery.

One of the rural facts of life is that kids like to blow up your mailbox with cherry bombs sometimes. Fair enough.

But why today? She already had to deal with Melanie, who was slumped on a stool at the kitchen counter, her cheeks streaked with tears because she had witnessed a snapping turtle devour a painted turtle down at the pond.

Melanie was dabbing her eyes, and the kitchen was already like a sauna because Nan was boiling huge pots of water in preparation for the mashed potato project. Months ago, she had signed on to whip up two hundred servings of mashed potatoes for a church supper. “Snapping turtles must kill animals to eat, or they would starve to death,” Nan said, ripping open a Betty Crocker box. “It’s not like they can go to the supermarket. They’re not mean, it’s just nature.”

The only response was a quiet sniffle.

Nan glanced at the oven clock. Roger would be coming up for lunch soon, after mowing down in the meadow. “What’s all that?” he’d say. “How’d you get stuck with all this mashed potato nonsense?”

And he’d be right. Why not just set out potato chips. Nan imagined that somewhere there was a woman in charge of cooking two hundred servings of gravy asking similar questions.

Of course all of this stuff would have to be reheated. The whole deal smacked of a woman’s idea. Nan hated to admit it, but a man would never think up a stupid idea like this. Why 200 servings? Why mashed potatoes and gravy at all? Because it’s good country cookin’? 

She laughed at the thought, her tiny kitchen stacked with cardboard boxes full of, what, industrial food specks that were made in China probably?

“Melanie, no, I was just thinking of something funny. I’m sorry the turtle had to die.”

Nan’s arm was getting sore from the effort of stirring all the dusty little potato bits till they liquefied. Plus she had twisted her shoulder cleaning out the mess made by the mailbox cherry bomb. The newspaper and a letter got singed, but of course the bills emerged unscathed. It only goes to figure, Nan thought to herself.

So how the heck was she to carry this potato mountain to the church hall? In what? Well, she could freeze it. ... Yes, she could freeze it into a huge potato snowball and roll it out to the station wagon. Then ... no, wait ... she could carve it into a centerpiece just like an ice sculpture, except made out of potatoes.

But a sculpture of what? How about a pair of praying hands, mashed-potato hands, frozen in god-fearing contemplation. Accompanied by a gravy fountain just like the chocolate fountains that people dip strawberries in. She imagined the look on Pastor Hauersperger’s face as the congregation stuck forkfuls of mashed potatoes into a fountain of lumpy gravy in the church basement. 

“Melanie, you realize the chicken we eat was once a living chicken,” she said.

That wasn’t a helpful lesson to offer right now, Nan decided, judging from Melanie's reaction.

Back to the sculpture idea, which was too good to waste on a church dinner. It really was art. She’d read about artists who gained glory for hanging moldy bread on gallery walls or stinky old mattresses from the ceilings. Maybe her potato sculptures would make her a millionaire or get her on Good Morning America. This time she held back laughing for Melanie’s sake.

The screen door banged. “What’s all that?”

Roger was back. Nan made a mental note that once again she had accurately predicted exactly the words he’d say.

And then, “How did you get stuck with this mashed potato nonsense?”

“While you were down there messing around in the meadow, I had a good idea,” Nan told him. “These potatoes are gonna make us famous.”