• As i sat down at the dinner table, tired and quite unfocused, i couldn't help feeling miserable for some reason. I had had the day off from work and spent most of the day sleeping, trying to recover my strength for the next day of meaningless labor that brought in my meager income. I was sitting at the head of the table since i was the oldest and only male left in the house, my father having departed to prison and my brother long since married and gone. My mother sat at my right and my sister at the opposite end of the table from me with my nephew to her right.

    The meal was none other than meatloaf with a baked patato and some peas. I hated baked potatoes, but i was feeling particuarly apathetic at the time and picked up the patato like an apple and commenced to eat it like so, not caring much for edicate at the time. I pulled the horrible thing away from my mouth and began to chew. As i was chewing i looked a the spud as i squished it between my fingers and looked quizzically at the white meat pushing itself out of the skin. I couldn't help but notice that the protruding meat looked like clumps of sugar.

    It was then that it occured to me, life is a baked patato. As children all we can see is the squished white patato meat and imagine that it is sugar. But as we grow into adults and finally take a bite of the spud we are bitterly dissapointed to find that the patato tastes nothing like sugar, but instead, dirt. And for the three minutes that is the majority of our adult life that we must spend eating the patato and mourning it's bitterness we are rewarded. For in the old age of digestion the benifit of the patato is apparent, our bodies are nurished and we are filled with wisdom.

    And as for those like my nephew who refused to eat the patato and proceded to the kitchen to stock up on marshmellows, they are forlorn in the end. For foolishness taste as sweet as honey but rests in the belly as an ulcer. Our minds rot with folly just as our teeth turn to cavities from the corruption of the sugar. But i can't help but ask, who is truly wise? For even though the spud eaters live long, their life is filled with the bitter taste of dirt. And though the sugar czars live a short existance, it is filled with pleasure and corrupted smiles. I guess it comes down to what is most important to us, longevity or quality.