Couching the potato...

Sorry, I couldn’t resist that title. Although Nick is right, it DOES sound a little bit naughty… :)

But couching the potato aside, I am wondering where the term “couch potato” came from, exactly. I mean, I understand the “couch” part – if you hang out on the couch a lot, it would make sense for the object of your leisure to be a part of your colorful description. But potato? Why potato? Why not couch carrot? Or couch rutabaga? Or couch apple? Is it some sort of well-known fact that the potato is a particularly lazy vegetable? (And if it IS a well-known fact, why was I not aware of it??)

Actually, the potato seems to be one of the hardest-working veggies out there. It’s very versatile, and extremely popular. You can boil it, roast it, bake it, fry it… it gets along quite well with other vegetables, and melds with just about any condiment you can think of. If you have a sweet potato, it even makes a great dessert. Potatoes are out there working their dirty little eyes out, and we’ve made them a symbol for sloth and lack of ambition.

In fact, you don’t even have to EAT a potato for it to be useful. Who hasn’t made a potato stamp in art class at one point or another? (I hope I’m not the only one who made potato stamps…) You can even use them for cool science experiments – they have enough voltage to power small clocks. Lazy? I hardly think so…

And where would this world be without Mr. Potato Head? By the way, I recently saw a show about old toys, and I learned that Mr. Potato Head was originally sold as ONLY the nose and eyes and ears and other parts – you were supposed to provide your own potato. So these kids back in the 50’s (or whenever it was that Mr. Potato Head debuted) were using REAL potatoes, and piercing them with little plastic eyes and ears. I have this image of a kid keeping his beloved Mr. Potato Head hidden under the bed for far too long… do you suppose that’s why they eventually realized a PLASTIC potato would suffice?

Anyway, the point is – potatoes are anything but lazy. But perhaps this phrase has less to do with the hard-working potato, and more to do with the shape of the person it’s referring to. I suppose if you spend all your time lying around on a couch, you’ll eventually morph into a sort of round, lumpy mush, not unlike a big old plate of mashed potatoes.

It’s just a shame that the dynamic, industrious potato has to be linked with such behavior. I am now going to go jog on the treadmill, in my effort to become a not-so-fond-of-the-couch stalk of celery…