Half a Boiled Potato Will Not Save Us

Dear Mother,

I know I've raised this issue before, but keeping that 'half a boiled potato' on the wire shelf of your fridge will not save us in the event of global lockdown, outbreak of war or famine.

Every week, after the Sunday roast, it appears.

And there is stays.

For a week.

I don't know where it goes in the end but I'm guessing it isn't anywhere exciting?

No sooner than it's gone - it's back! Our little friend.... going slightly dry and grey and beginning to crumble..... Not once have I ever been tempted to do anything with it which it involve digesting it afterwards. And neither has anyone else.

That and a mysterious tea cup with something that looks like toxic sludge in it. I think it's 'dripping' but nobody is about to start spreading it on Yorkshire Puddings and dipping them in sugar so just give up, yeah? Unless you have a plan for this dripping then I'd suggest you accept it's no longer 1952 in Chesterfield and if we want a 'sweet snack' we'll opt for a chocolate finger.

We'll leave aside the homemade coleslaw which was last seen fizzing wildly and presumably turning itself into some kind of 'cabbage wine with a mayo finish' as I don't want to embarass you too much....but..

....whilst we're on the fridge, lets be bold and move to the freezer.

Ahhhh the freezer.

In that freezer there are many many 'freezer bags' containing odd items.

These freezer bags have special label bits you can write on. The idea is that you write on what is in the bag and when it was put in there. You seem to have missed this point?

Week after week after month goes by and nobody EVER defrosts ANY of them. It's a lucky dip too far.

Do you think it's not now time to bite the bullet and accept that it's highly unlikely we are ever going to ask for any of the following for tea:

- the cockerel (who may or may not have been gay) who was like a pet but you got killed due to 'over population of cocks' and then nobody could bear to eat (or it appears throw away) so lives his life in some kind of cryogenic suspension, year after year, in the freezer. I think he's been in there a decade now. Look, even if there are big jumps forward in science and technology it's highly unlikely they will be able to ressurect him and undo your guilt. For a start he's missing his entire head. And legs. And I should imagine his innards. Let him go.... just let him go.... and NOT into a Coq au Vin.

- the 'trout' which your friend Colin caught and kindly gave to you, but with a warning that it came from a 'pond' and would therefore be 'very muddy' and possibly 'highly unpleasant'. I would hazard a guess here that you are NEVER going to be hungry enough to eat a 'muddy and highly unpleasant' ancient old frozen trout? And frankly, neither am I. Once again, let it go....

- the pheasant (which may actually be another cockerel or possibly a duck) that has been in there SO long that it probably needs carbon dating in order to work out just when it should have been thrown away..... Apparently you didn't eat it because you were worried it would be dry and a bit tough. Well I should think that's no longer a worry, more of a dead cert.

- the potted shrimps. Potted sometime shortly after the 2nd World War I think....

- the alcoholic homemade icecream that I have now eaten twice and been violently sick afterwards, errr, twice. How many more times are you going to poison house guests? You claim throwing it away will be messy. Here's an idea! Let it melt and then pour it into the hedge or something. I've cleaned up worse.


I mean I'm all for 'thrift' and 'waste not want not' but it's time to now accept I'm never going to sit down to a meal of fizzing coleslaw, dripping, muddy trout and 20 year old frozen cock with toxic ice cream.

OK?

Yours, not hungry for once,

Your Daughter

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