Fingerling Potatoes, and Other Objects of Obvious Alien Origin

The other day my housemate, who shall remain nameless for these pages, trotted into the kitchen to retrieve a cup of coffee. Seconds later, his voice emanated from the vicinity of the coffee maker in a plaintive wail. “WHAT ARE THESE ‘THINGS’ IN THIS BAG??” he cried, a lumpy plastic sack in his fist.

“Why, THOSE are FINGERLING POTATOES!” I replied rather matter-of-factly.

“What ARE they!!? What do you DO with ‘them’??!!” he again inquired, his brain struggling valiantly with this most alien of concepts.

“Well, …. er …. Well, I….I’ve been planning on ROASTING them with olive oil and garlic – and perhaps a little rosemary?!”

“You mean we’ll EAT THESE?!” he asked, his voice rising in alarm. “HOW?!” “WITH WHAT?!!”

[I spoke slowly, carefully enunciating…] “Well, yes, I’ve been planning on cooking them … maybe serve ‘em with chicken or steak … just haven’t gotten around to doing anything with them yet.”

“WHY??!” “WHY ARE THEY STILL HERE??!” “Do you MASH ‘em?!”

“Well, nooo, we’ll eat them WHOLE – they’ll be nice and crispy once I cook ‘em.” I probably should have added, “IF I cook ‘em” since they’ve been languishing around the kitchen counter for about a month or so! … But I digress…

Meanwhile I’m trying to remain patient but find myself wondering when the ALIEN had taken over his body, as he seems to be intensely puzzled by even the mundane, familiar and earthly!

This witty banter continued for about an hour or so… well, okay, it was more like 30 seconds to a minute, it just SEEMED so much longer – and got me thinking about how we “humans”, when faced with the unknown or the unfamiliar (be it a thing, a person, or an experience) will attempt to “dub in” some logical seeming “explanation” fitting within the “framework” of our respective experiences and sense of familiarity.

Take for example a visit to the local hardware store or antique shop, places rife with any manner of “odd” and “unidentifiable” “thingies” just screaming for misidentification and misnomer! We’ll pick up the questionable object and if it fails categorization by our terms, by god, we’ll figure out what “it” is and GIVE it a NAME and a USE, just so we don’t have to go around for the rest of the day with a “blank” in our brains, wondering what that “THING” might have been!

Same with “people”. We’ll see or meet someone who, by their manner of dress, appearance, speech, art, etc., doesn’t quite fit some “cookie cutter” stereotype with which we may have become familiar (comfortable?), and we’ll EXPLAIN them “away” by “jamming” them into some familiar “category” or, worse still, by summarily dismissing him or her by filing them under some stereotype, and vilifying them because they don’t “fit” into that SAFE little familiar “niche”! Why?

I say, TO HELL with CATEGORIZATION and FAMILIARITY! Open yourselves UP to experiencing and interacting with the unfamiliar and unknown, smash down the walls of your respective little boxes, and you just might be pleasantly surprised, if not that much richer for allowing yourself to venture out into the vast unknown!

[Okay, I’ll get off the soapbox now… and go roast those damn Fingerling Potatoes.]