“Potato affair - the incongruity of taking matters into your own HAND”

I can’t recall what was the first thought that had come to mind before I decided to remove my eight year old hand from the pocket and place it firmly on the “vegetable of the peasants”.

My hometown- Poznań is well known from the most varieties of potatoes in the country. Stealing one of them , could be a perfect opportunity to take revenge on the local shop owner. I wanted to serve the justice for the whole neighborhood of victimized old ladies who were notoriously given short change. Shopkeeper’s husband was known for devilish practices such as putting a finger on the scale and as the rumor had it, adding water to the sauerkraut at the back of the shop.

Let me clarify that I didn’t commit this crime in the heat of the moment. It was a meticulously planned heist. I carefully chose the time of the day, making sure that a grocery store is crowded enough to sneak in. Shopping without your parents wasn’t raising any suspicions among the locals. Even buying a pack of cigarettes was as easy as getting a piece of cake ( no pun intended). To open sesame , all you needed to say was ,that there were for your mum. You only might have gone into trouble if the shop owner knew that your parents were nicotine abstinents. Having a ready story about visiting uncle was a card up my sleeve.

My grandma Josephina was one of many customers. I could always tell by looking at the pace of her hand holding a crochet that she either lost a poker game at her local senior club, or just came back from the corner store. I don’t think that my right hand ever mastered the speed and precision while a cello bow was touching the strings.

The trouble was, that we couldn’t walk to another store. Josephina was avoiding the neighbor who was a frequent customer and the fellow poker contestant. The nature of their dispute remains fuzzy however it was serious enough to keep going back to the infamous shop.

It was high time I took matters into my own hands. As I was standing in front of the “potato mountain” , scrupulously inspecting each and every one of them, I found it extremely puzzling that a store keeper didn’t find my erring hand suspicious. If I was raised in a different country, by this point my limb would have been a subject of the public amputation or a whipping post. Subsequently, I could easily forget about potential career of the cellist or further education in Vienna Conservatory of Music. Which admittedly, due to the lack of enthusiasm in my daily practice, wouldn’t have happened anyway. I took a big breath and grabbed a potato which I though will easily fit into my pocket. My whole body was fully alert. What if someone saw me. I quietly left the shop and started running fast towards home. I wasn’t thinking of the repercussions. Someone finally did justice. I wanted my grandma to be proud of me.I opened the apartment door and sprinted to the living room ,holding a trophy as if it was the Olympic flame. I screamed at the top of my lungs “ Look what I got ! I nicked a potato from the shop!”

It took Josephina a few seconds to turn around. When I looked at her face I realized that she wasn’t impressed at all. The truth was , to her it might have been as well a pack of cigarettes.She immediately commanded me to go back to the shop . Luckily , grandmother was in the middle of watching her favorite soap opera so she trusted me enough to take it back myself. I meekly put my loot into the pocket.

The notion of admitting my recent sin to the shop owner, made me feel naked as the day I was born. Therefore , I decided to return it in the same manner as I stole it. I walked back to the shop in a pace of the turtle, dragging one foot after another. I opened the door almost noiselessly, looked around and put it back on the pile of freshly delivered potatoes. When I came back home, my grandma was still glued to TV watching the latest episode of “ Dynasty” , so no questions were asked. After the incident however, we started shopping in a different neighborhood. The store was situated at least five tram stops away. Just about when it began to make my afternoons more exciting, Josephina found out that the shop owners sell imported apples (sic!). This biblical fruit was after potatoes the most popular commodity that grows on Polish soil. Buying a fresh product that comes from behind Western boarder was like a slap on the cheek. In my mind, going back to the shop which sells a sauerkraut mixed with water, was like turning another cheek. Sometimes I wish that national pride had only cost Poland as much as a tram ticket to another neighborhood.

Whenever I reminisce about my mischievous adventure I can’t recall what my intention was to turn a stolen treasure into. Cooking , mashing or baking it , would have made impossible for me to digest it. Guilty conscious always feels like a heartburn - even for an eight year old.