An Amorous Essay on Potatus-Totius.

I love tater tots. I have to start off with that statement, because every other statement involving the small deep-friend ground potato bites simply pales in comparison. I love them. I don’t think you understand how much I love them. I love them fondly, mentally, emotionally, and yes, sometimes in the privacy of my home kitchen, physically. Do not judge me yet! Please! Listen to my tale of the tots.

You see, when I was a child, I belonged to an adventurous family. My Mother was an Amazonian big-game hunter. My Father was an esteemed tribal Psychologist. Before I had learned not to shit my pants, I was trouncing along in ancient rain forests on the backs of camels or hippos or albino pygmies. I could delouse a baboon before I knew my ABC’s. I could strike a fire using python fangs against a boar skull before I had even seen a picture of a bicycle. It was a quaint existence.

But life in the wilderness has the unfortunate side-effect of greatly lowering one’s life-expectancy, and it was only a matter of time before my parents were devoured (after a cultural misunderstanding in southern Peru). Luckily for me, I was young enough not to remember the incident well, although sometimes in the evenings when the wind rustles the leaves, I can vaguely recall the soft, meaty smacking of lips as the cannibals set in on them.

Partly due to the whims of the nearest trading port, and partly due to the tattoo of the Irish flag I have on my left buttock, I was shipped off to Ireland with a cargo of cursed Cougar Gold to learn a trade in the potato fields. At the age of eleven I was reunited with a village of distant relatives and taught how to seed, sow, and harvest potatoes. I learned the hundreds of different ways to prepare potatoes to eat, how to tile a floor with potato skins, how to shoe a horse with potato-pads, and even learned how to brew special love-potions using the eyes of potatoes and special leprechaun dusts. By the time I was sixteen, no man in the village could claim a stronger potato-ale than what I brewed in my small cellar room. Potatoes were my life!

It was that winter that the Mongol invaders sacked our village. They were lost at sea for years, bound for India, and somehow found themselves at our meek little seaport. They wasted no time in reigning destruction down upon our town, setting fire to every building and running down every man, woman, and child. I was asleep in my cellar when the screaming woke me up, but by then it was too late. The mill above me was set ablaze, the horrifying aroma of sweet potatoes and flesh pouring down on me, fallen rubble blocking my escape. It must have been the potato-powder bins above me that ignited and exploded, but all I remember before being knocked unconscious was a deep, loud bang and then a warm, delicious softness covering my body.

By the time I recovered, the raiders had already left, apparently tired and full on potato products. I found myself covered in soft, fried potato shreds, warmed from the explosion and baked a golden-brown from the heat of the fire above. This was my first introduction to tater tots. You see, they had saved my life. They had cushioned my fall, had kept me warm, and blanketed me against the heat of the barbaric destruction. As I ate my way out of my glorious tater cocoon, I began to realize that I was the only person left alive in the village. Tears welled up in my eyes, and I mourned the loss of my friends and family, and I sat and hugged the mounds of warm totness, taking solace in its silky embrace.

My sorrow was short lived, however. Growing up with adventurous parents, and then earning my way in the potato fields had instilled a strength of spirit inside me, and I knew then where I had to go: America. I built myself a mighty potato ship, sealed it with potato oil, and drew up a mighty potato-skin sail and set off across the ocean towards the Land of Opportunity. If I had things my way, it would be the land of Totportunity.

Two months later I arrived in America, and was welcomed with open arms. I had eaten my ship down to but a small tot-raft, yet my desire for the potato treat had never died. Much to my surprise, the crafty Americans had already discovered the magic of the tot, and the cultural movement I had been prepared to set in motion was as needless as a scarecrow in a tater field. I had arrived home.

But sometimes in the evenings, when the brisk autumn wind finds its way through cracks in the walls, or the soft outside breezes smack meatily across the tree limbs, I find myself compelled to fill the bathtub with warm, fresh tater tots, and then allow my naked body to become absorbed by their embrace. And when you see me with greasy pockets filled with tots, think to yourself “Don’t I have photos of my loved-ones in my pockets?” We are the same, you and I. It is human nature to surround yourself among the things you love. And well, my friends, I love tater tots.