MISTER POTATO'S COURAGEOUS FACE-OFF

As I was walking I was struck in the head by a rock the size of a tomato.  I am not a tall man.  But when I was falling it seemed like slow motion and the ground was an impossible distance from my face.  It seemed as if I didn’t really have a body.  Just the face was falling and the motion was like a camera affixed to an unmanned moon landing -- one which had a hidden monkey stowaway who had some reckless plans for zany lunar antics.

No sound but a “poof” of dusty gravel as my face smashed into the earth.  I had puffed out my cheeks hoping they would act like air bags in an automobile and cushion the blow. This was something I could do because there was so much time because my face was falling very far and very slowly because there was no body attached because a rock had struck me and knocked my face off.  The air bag idea was not effective.

At ground level my face looked up to see the rock which had struck me.  The rock turned a bit towards me (to “face” me I guess you’d say).  “I’m sorry,” said the rock.

So now I was just a face, a face that could converse with rocks.  I had not considered something like this when I had left the house a few minutes earlier, setting out to buy some potatoes.  But here I was, face to face with a rock.  And on his home turf to make it even more distressing.  I wondered if this should be considered Ground Zero since my face was on the ground and I had zero idea what was happening.

“I’m very sorry,” the rock said again.  Can a rock appear contrite?  “I didn’t want to strike you but I was under strict orders.”

This was a rock that was not prepared to take responsibility for its own actions.  Can a rock lose its backbone?

“Strict orders from the Tomato King,” Mister Rock went on.  “You are not to bring any potatoes onto this block.  He simply will not have it.”  Can a rock rebound and grow some stones, and sound indignant?

Since the rock was talking and I was listening I decided I could probably talk as well.  “Why no potatoes?” I asked the rock.

“Potatoes are bad,” came the reply.  “Potatoes have bugs.  They are a breeding ground of vermin and filth.  And they have a lot of negative energy.”  The rock shivered as if he were staging his own little private earthquake.  I got the impression he didn’t really believe what he was saying but was reciting it from memory.

“The Tomato King?”  I had just fixed on this phrase.  This sounded like something Paul McCartney would have come up with for one of the later Beatles albums; you know, after John got squelched by Yoko and didn’t have time to keep his songwriting partner in check.

“There is tremendous conflict between the tomatoes and the potatoes.  There is a war,”  said the rock, and I decided to dub him Sgt. Rock if the conversation was to continue down this path.

“Why am I talking to you?  You are a rock,” I observed.

“And you are a face,” the rock said with an air of simple and ridiculous logic, “Are there other things that a face might be doing right now?”

In the distance I could hear a song playing on a radio.  “Hey, radio!  Hey, song!” I yelled. “Why is this warmongering rock talking to me?”  I figured it was worth a try.

The radio paused.  “We will be right back after these messages,” it said.  My face drooped in disappointment.  For a second I had thought I had him.

“It’s time to face facts, Face,” said Sgt. Rock.  “Is it going to be tomato or potato?  Are you with us or against us?”

“Hmmm,” I said quietly.  “Let me see.  I am face to face with a dilemma here.  A very difficult question.”  I tried to rub my chin as if lost in thought.  For obvious reasons, this was a no-go.

“I am in need of reuniting with my body,” I said finally.  “If I swear my allegiance to the tomatoes, can they guarantee me that I will be safely reunited with the rest of my corporeal self?”  I suspected that I was still nearby since there was a long shadow falling from behind me and settling between my position and that of Sgt. Rock.

“Absolutely!” cried the rock, and he stood at attention; a bewildering and unsettling gesture when performed by a rock.  “And I am prepared to designate your corporeal self as a Corporal.  You shall be Corporal Self, under the command of the Most High and Supreme King of the Tomatoes!”

“Very well,” I said gravely.  “Make it so.”  I closed my eyes and prepared to wait.

The next thing I knew, my face was reconnected with my body.  I was standing on the sidewalk again.  At my feet the rock was sitting, with an expression of stony resolve.

“Ah!” I said.  I brushed off my hands on my pants leg.  “This is much better.”  I nodded to the rock and started down the street, in the same direction that I had been going before this whole cockamamie incident had erupted, completely uninvited and unannounced and, quite frankly, teetering on the borderline of annoyance.

“Wait!” called the rock.  His voice was growing dimmer as I moved briskly away.  “Where are you going?”

I stopped and turned to face him, one final time.  “I am going to buy a can of yams and a sledge hammer,” I said.

“You just wait right here.”   As I walked I had a powerful compulsion to whistle a tune.