MISSING: SWEET POTATOES

After work I go to the grocery store.  I'm hoping it won't be so bad three days before Thanksgiving, but I am wrong.  The place is reasonably crowded, but that's not the worst of it.

The worst of it is that the shelves are not stocked very well.

The milk display is waning, I have to chase down a stock person for a can of cranberry sauce, there are only five Granny Smith apples left in the produce section, and there are zero sweet potatoes.  Zero.  When I get to the empty sweet potato display, I join two other confused shoppers.  Seriously, we just keep starting at the empty space, as if that will make sweet potatoes suddenly appear.  One woman walks around the display case three times, her mouth hanging partially open, her eyes wide and vacant as she wonders what the hell she will do now without sweet potatoes at Thanksgiving.

An older man wanders up, stares for about fifteen seconds, then asks blankly, "What's the difference between those red oriental sweet potatoes and regular ones?"

Um, they're red, for starters.

I am not cooking this Thanksgiving, but I am baking.  I'm making various non-yeast breads (coffee cake, banana bread, pumpkin bread) and two pies (apple and pumpkin).  I bought stuff to bake some other things, as well, but these are my main staples.

I really want a sweet potato with my dinner tonight, though.

When I get home and put my groceries away, I find a sweet potato in the vegetable crisper.  I cook it up and eat it with some pre-roasted chicken and cornbread, a pre-Thanksgiving Protest Meal of sorts.  It's a sad day when my near-empty refrigerator has more basic Thanksgiving food than the grocery store.  Well, it's actually a happy day for me because I found the sweet potato, but it's a sad day for all those other shoppers, or, at least for the open-mouthed woman and the oriental red sweet potato guy.

PS. I'll admit I didn't know oriental red sweet potatoes existed, so forgive me if they're really something else  and I've offended anyone with my un-PC potato rambling. Happy pre-Thanksgiving, folks.