A 22-year-old Colombian woman has unwittingly stumbled upon a promising horticultural idea.
It was unwitting because her intention was never to grow potatoes. Following her mother’s advice, she simply used that versatile root vegetable as a contraceptive device.
However, by the time she was admitted to hospital with acute abdominal pains, and the doctors tried to harvest the potato, it had already germinated and grown roots inside her.
Mercifully, the woman suffered no lasting damage, at least none of the physical kind.
While deliriously happy for her, I’m still sorry that the report of the incident omitted some crucial details.
First, since Colombia is a predominantly Catholic country, one wonders whether the girl’s priest knew she was using contraception, something the Church doesn’t really condone.
Could it be argued that, since God didn’t create the potato for that application, it doesn’t constitute a legitimate contraceptive device? There are layers of theological subtexts there, and it would be a shame to leave them unexplored.
Here’s another question demanding an urgent answer: What kind of potato was it? I do think the patient’s profile would be incomplete without specifying whether it was, say, a small new potato, a medium Russet or a cricket-ball sized baking variety.
Did the vegetable serve its intended purpose? One would think the trickier spermatozoa would be able to find their way around such an obstacle. If they didn’t, the size of the potato becomes even more relevant.
Also, and that’s the foodie in me, I’d like to know what happened to the potato afterwards. In a country where food is sometimes at a premium an edible vegetable, especially one that boasts an unusual flavour, shouldn’t be wasted.
Admittedly the use of certain organs as vegetable patches is somewhat unorthodox, but this idea should certainly be considered for wider use in small countries where arable land is scarce. (I hope my Dutch friends aren’t reading this.) Such an innovative concept would certainly add a whole new meaning to combining business with pleasure.
Alas, instead of approaching the story in this rational and creative way, and uncovering its wealth of both agricultural and amorous possibilities, the papers have chosen the occasion to bemoan the absence of sex education in Colombian schools.
At first glance, the problem just might go a bit deeper than that, as it were. After all, just a few decades ago there wasn’t much sex education in England either, yet those ruddy lasses of yesteryear only ever used potatoes for chips.
What if – and I know I’m letting my imagination run away with me – the girl was a subject in a clinical trial aimed to discover surreptitious ways of growing the crop for which Colombia is more widely known than her potatoes?
That’s only a remote possibility, but one worth pondering.
One just hopes that the sneering reactionaries who slept through their diversity classes won’t use this incident to generalise about the beautiful country of Columbia.
I’ll have you know that, according to The Freedom House, the ultimate arbiter in such matters, Colombia is a full-fledged democracy. As such it satisfies the only criterion of geopolitical virtue that my neocon friends hold in high esteem.
Incidentally, the same Washington think tank doesn’t regard Britain, circa 1900, as a democracy. This means that Colombia today is much more sophisticated than Britain was then, a point further strengthened by the fact that even in the intervening 114 years English women still haven’t explored the raft of possibilities resident in a simple spud.
I hope I’ve given you something to think about the next time you enjoy your bangers and mash. Bon appetit!
My forthcoming book Democracy as a Neocon Trick can be pre-ordered, at what the publisher promises to be a spectacular discount, fromhttp://www.roperpenberthy.co.uk/index.php/browse-books/political/democracy-as-a-neocon-trick.html or, in the USA,http://www.newwinebookshop.com/Books/0002752