This potato may signal the end of civilization as we know it.

Humanity is truly amazing. I can’t believe how lucky I am to be part of it. I am constantly amazed at the inventiveness of our species — the ability to see a problem and turn that into an opportunity. That brings me to this little gem that I found while shopping at my local grocery store.

Let this sink in for a minute.

There I was in the produce aisle perusing the potatoes and suddenly I was confronted with this unexpected paradigm shift. I stared at this for a minute trying to wrap my head around this, uh, curiosity. I looked up and around a full 360 degrees because I assumed someone was recording my reaction to this. But everyone was just going about their business as if everything was totally normal. Weird.

I examined the label to take in each carefully chosen word. My favorite part is where it says “Peel Here” for cooking instructions. I also liked that it was clearly labeled as a Russet Potato. This removes all unnecessary ambiguity and is a really nice touch.

As a UX designer, I had questions — so many questions. My mind was racing — who is the target audience for this potato and what problem does it solve? There must be some good explanation for taking an ordinary Russet Potato® and encasing it in a see-through plastic bodysuit. Is it because potatoes by themselves are harmless and we needed more choking hazards for sea turtles? Probably not since there are much easier and direct ways to annoy turtles. Some research was needed and I am just the guy to do it. Side note — it occurs to me that there may be some pandemic-induced hysteria going on here, but I’ll ignore that for now.

The research

My first stop was to the Side Delights website. That’s right, they have a web site. I was “delighted” to uncover many new gems on the site. There are too many to even discuss, but I will say that “Performance Magazine — Potato Edition” was worth the trip. Here is what the website had to say about the potato’s selling points (as if I needed to be convinced any further).

Single-serve, light, fluffy, delicious baked potatoes you microwave in minutes!

• Triple-washed — because chances are you’ll eat it straight from the wrapper!
• Ready to microwave right in its wrapper — no mess, no cleanup
• Ready to eat in just 8 minutes!

Wait, what? Chances are that I’ll eat it straight from the wrapper? I don’t think so, but apparently, they believe there is a segment of the population that will take a steaming hot potato (remember, 8 minutes in the microwave), tear it open like a raccoon, and jam it straight into their mouth hole. No need for plates or utensils — just you, a potato, and a wrapper. It does say no mess or cleanup so I’m not completely clear on whether or not you are supposed to eat the wrapper. That’s probably in the instructions somewhere. This may have generated more questions than it answered, but at least now I have some general idea of the thinking behind it.

I was also a little baffled by the 8 minute cook time. I assumed that the wrapper was there to speed things up. But as I looked at various other sites, there weren’t substantial differences in time for cooking a Naked Potato®. Some further research revealed an unsettling explanation…

Potato Bombs are a thing and this will probably end badly

After a bit of Googling, I uncovered the fact that potatoes explode — a lot. There were over 3.2 million matches to “potato explode microwave” with various warnings about personal injuries and broken microwave ovens if you don’t properly poke holes in your potato. But recall on the wrapper that it says “DO NOT remove or poke holes in the wrap”. This is counter to virtually all of the advice I found on the internet — a trusted source for good advice.

Now it is clear. The wrapper is a blast shield to contain the inevitable explosion resulting from NOT poking holes. Very clever — maybe a bit too clever, if you know what I mean. There must be an insidious purpose for this which brings me to yet more questions.

What if your potato doesn’t explode? Let’s say, for example, that a particular potato and its accompanying blast shield provide enough structural integrity so that it doesn’t completely fly apart? What happens then when the unsuspecting busy consumer with only 8 minutes to spare tears through that wrapper with their bare teeth? I presume that there will be horrific carnage with steaming hot potato shrapnel exploding in your face.

Or even worse, could such a potato be used as a launchable weapon? You can’t tell me that those monsters didn’t consider the implications of a weaponized potato. All you would need is several microwave ovens and potato guns to launch a devastating offensive.

Mark my words — it’s the end of civilization as we know it.