The Potato Story

My 93-yr-old grandmother is having trouble with pain in the bottoms of her feet. A friend of hers suggested that she sleep with a potato at the bottom of the bed between the sheets. It's said to help with foot and leg pain. So a few weeks ago, Grandma started sleeping with a raw potato.

After a few days, there was no improvement in her pain, so just in case, she added a bar of soap to her bedcovers, swiped by my mother from a hotel. My mother made a special trip over to her apartment to bring it to her as this was important! I, too, began sleeping with a bar of soap tucked between my feet, as the internet did suggest it was helpful with leg cramps and restless leg syndrome, the latter of which I experience frequently. Grandma also decided to put her potato in the refrigerator during the day to make it last longer.

One night last week, my grandmother settled into her bed and noticed that the potato was not there. She got up, looked around the bed, on the floor, under the bed, and in the refrigerator. No potato AND no soap, either. Then she remembered that the housekeeper had come that day and had changed the bedsheets.

The next day she went down to the housekeeper's room, found her housekeeper, and asked her, "Have you seen my potato?" The housekeeper gave her a very strange look. "The potato was in my bed," Grandma said, "along with a bar of soap." She began explaining to the puzzled woman, who I'm sure thought Grandma had lost all of her sense, that she slept with a potato and a bar of soap at night to help her with her foot pain. "No," the woman had not seen the potato or the soap.

So back to her apartment Grandma went and looked again in the clean sheets, under and around the bed on the floor, scratching her head. No potato, and as an afterthought, no soap.

The next day there was a knock at her door. The housekeeper, laughing out loud, was standing there with the potato and soap in hand. She had found them in the wash.

You would think I would have learned from Grandma's story, but our housekeeper found my bar of soap in our bedcovers on Friday. She no doubt layed it down on the cedar chest in total confusion. The difference is, I was not there to explain why so I am sure she is stumped and telling her friends how the tenant in Apt. # blank sleeps with a bar of soap. Oh, well, at least it wasn't a potato.