YSaC, Vol. 439: Message in a … mason jar.
2009 September 29
THE PERFECT GIFT! NITA PEETA’S SWEET POTATO POTS! GROWN IN HER KITCHEN – $30
This would be great as a gift and is grown from Grandy Nita’s own kitchen and put in a pot with a prayer for you and you can add your own destiny message. This is beautiful when it goes into full bloom and only takes about 3 weeks to start looking pretty. It comes with a message from the universe to you or your favorite friend!!!! Will deliver locally for 10.00
Please Call
Nita (Grandy)
xxx xxx-xxxx
Um, it’s a potato. In a pot. I’m pretty sure you’ve given away your trade secret here, Nita.
Although you do get a message from the universe with each one. Too bad the message from the universe is probably something like, “Hey jackass, you just bought a potato in a pot.”
Thanks to MsMarvel for the submission!
The universe is calling all ceramic chickens and bananas through potted sweet potato plants. Come and meet your destiny, giant inflatable banana!
Is the finished product the size of one big potato or many small potatoes?
“…put in a pot with a prayer for you…” – I’m pretty sure that prayer would be “Please let whom so ever buys this thing not realize they have just purchased a grade school science experiment.”
They are actually sweet potatoes, the potato’s redneck cousin. Down here in the South at harvesting time you can glean them from the harvested fields by the bushel for free. They do make nice houseplants, but I would not pay $30 for something I could do myself for next to nothing. The wonky bow in the last pic is a nice touch, though.
wait, does it come in the mason jar or the ceramic pot? Because obviously a potato in a mason jar is well worth $30 dollars ($40 delivered locally) but a potato planted in a ceramic pot? That’s priceless! Plus I get a message from the universe? Just wait until my friends hear the universe sent little old me a personalized message!
The whole delivery idea tickles me. This would be a great prank for a boyfriend to pull on Valentine’s Day: girlfriend expects a beautiful bouquet and squeals when a delivery vehicle pulls in…only to find it’s Yam in a Pot instead of two dozen roses.
Followed quickly by Boyfriend in a Doghouse.
Now that’s reminding me of the Smiths’ “Girlfriend in a Coma.”
“Boyfriend in a doghouse
I know
I know
It’s serious …”
I think “Message In A Pot” was the working title to the Police’s song, but it just didn’t fit, and Sting was forced to make it “Message In A Bottle.” However, if he’d have seen these beautiful sweet potatoes, I think he’d have been more inspired.
“A year has past since I wrote my note (from the universe)
I should have known this right from the start,
Only love can keep us together (or a sweet potato)
Love can mend your life, or love can break your pot.”
I will now have that stuck in my head for the rest of the day.
Earworm launch complete. 🙂
Oh, “A year has passed” not “past.” Oops.
If you pronounce it “po-tah-to” you can sing the song perfectly with the substitution, as I will now do for the rest of my natural life to the annoyance of my friends and family.
This reminded me of old Loveline shows where ‘mason jar’ is code for ‘fake call’… thats what the transition from pic 2 to pic 3 looks like… fake.
A case where DIY goes wrong. At they very least they need marketing help to make this thing work. The jars need to be decorated. Show us a sample prayer typeset in a lovely card. Give us testimonials. Just sticking a potato in a jar? FAIL
They could have the Psychic Printing Company do their prayer printing.
Doesn’t that printing company already have their yam-in-a-jar-of-water-that-magically-grows-into-a-plant-in-a-terra-cotta-pot prayer cards printed up? They are psychic, after all…
Better yet, let’s hear some testimonials from people who have won the lottery/been granted eternal life/found true love from the yam in a pot universal prayer!
I have a feeling that there are a similar number of people who won the lottery/ found true love/ recovered from a debilitating disease because they sent a vaguely threatening, passive-agressive message to 40 other people.
And got money from that nice Nigerian man.
Large amounts of pot certainly would be needed before spending $30 on a bleedin’ yam in a jar.
Although “Yam In A Jar” would be a good band name.
They are sweet potatoes, not yams. Two completely different botanical species. Yams are native to Africa and are not cultivated in the US; what are mistakenly referred to as yams are sweet potatoes, native to South America. There is a company called Bruce’s(I think)that patented the name ‘Yams’ to put on their canned sweet potatoes as a product name(like Coke or Pepsi), but they are not real yams.
Sorry for the rant, it’s a pet peeve of mine.
*deep breath, exhale*
I feel better now.
I share the same pet peeve. Glad I am not the only one 🙂
Also a pet peeve. We should start a blog.
When you get that blog set up, send me a link. I’ll subscribe!! And to think, yesterday drmk said the Internet was full? Pshaw, if there’s not a “FOR THE LOVE OF BABY JESUS, YAMS ARE NOT SWEET POTATOES” blog out there yet, then there is *still* plenty of room on the Internet!
I’m hearing “Yam in a Jar” to the tune of No Doubt’s “Trapped in a Box”….and now it will never leave.
I’m hearing it to “Dick in a Box“.
Great, now all I can think of is the “Dicken’s Cider” skit.
I’m hearing the Family Guy “Ball in a cup” jingle.
Yam in a jar!
Yam in a jar!
It’s a yam in a jar!
Yam in a jar!
I’m hearing the “It’s Log!” faux-commercials from the old Ren and Stimpy Show, but with a sweet potato instead of a log.
only love can break your pot. or so they say.
i’d like a message from the universe, please.
I was curious and went over to my local CraigsList and typed in “sweet potato” and there is a gentleman in Wendell selling 40 pound boxes for $15. So I could get 80 pounds of sweet potatoes, or buy one in a pot of dirt. Hmmm…Tough call.
But think about it- are you really going to use 80 lbs of sweet potatoes?
If nothing else, Costco has taught me that while buying in bulk may save me money it can be more of a waste in the long run when I open the two-year old can of green beans…
I would imagine if you bought that many it would be for either a really big family or as a livestock feed. Pigs especially love sweet potatoes, but ducks and chickens will eat them if you grate them up first.
Why? That’s all I really want to know. Why make a houseplant out of food (the other way around would be more practical), and try to sell it at an outrageous markup with the wonky bow (@ sarajean80), and include a prayer? What if the prayer doesn’t apply to me? And the message from the universe?!? What? Why? I’m a subscriber to the Don Draper school of “The universe is indifferent.” Am I going to get a plant with a card reading, “Meh”?
Traditionally you would plant a few eyes (just the eye and an area around it, you would cook and eat the rest so it would not be wasted)in a pot so there would be something green and growing in the house during winter. In the spring you plant them in the garden and make more sweet potatoes. After a winter in the warm house developing healthy roots and leaves, the established plant would produce sweet potatoes earlier than eyes just set in the ground. You can also do this with a regular potato, just make sure no pets or children nibble on the leaves because they are poisonous.
The whole “message” thing is a twist I’ve never heard of before.
Hmmm, I could be tempted to try this. Except, living as I do on the 4th floor of an apartment block, I don’t have any place for cultivation aside from potted plants.
Spud In A Cup
1. I will strip down as far as you want me to – no thong though
2. I will put *high quality* toothpicks in the spud of your choice
3. I will put it in a cup – I have three different choices of cup!
4. You fill the cup with water, wearing clothing I choose
5. I will turn the lights off and on while you heat a donut for me
6. I leave with your $30
I wish I could vote for this multiple times.
Me too. I think I just pee’d myself a little.
Technically you can, if you sign off your computer and sign back on again. Not that I would EVER do that sort of thing…
The strobe doughnut was particularly enticing.
Can I choose the doughnut flavor?
JcT FTW. The reset button is genius enough, but this (plus comments) has me nearly laughing myself into incontinence at work.
Laughing Into Incontinence… isn’t that the title of the forthcoming Rolling Stones album?
No, the high quality toothpicks got me. Are they colored, with little plastic frills? I’m so there.
I want those little plastic swords you see in cocktails sometimes. I could have a little pirate potato.
Damn you JcT- I’ve been told to not read YSaCL at work because I could get in trouble for bursting out laughing- they’ll just KNOW I’m not actually working. So I figure, oh c’mon, I’ll be good. And you NAILED me. Thanks a lot.
#5–for some reason the mental image of a man blissfully flipping the light switch to the hum of a microwave now refuses to leave my mind. This could be a very interesting week.
Thank you all so much.
I wish I could make the whole world laugh. It needs it.
That is so awesome
Talk about a great return on your investment! $5/bag of potatoes, approx 20 per bag…charge $30 for each potato, minus a few bucks for pots and raffia ribbon…universal prayers are no extra charge, of course. Hell, that’s $590 profit! SIGN ME UP, GRANDY NITA-WE CAN BE THE NEXT FORTUNE 500 COMPANY
Why do I have the terrible feeling that “message from the universe” means “Fortune Cookie fortune that I couldn’t bring myself to throw away because they are so precious to me.”
Now I can only imagine a 75 year old woman rocking on her chair talking to a box full of fortunes she’s collected from cookies over the past 50 years. Each one is, of course, named and looking for a good home. In my vision she’s also knitting a tiny sweater for her favorite sweet potato *shiver*.
I think sweet potato granny and the taco bell sauce collector need to team up.
I can totally picture this. For some reason in my head she looks like Norman Bates’ mother(the good black and white version, not the crappy color remake) but not, you know, quite so dead.
Coming soon, from the one and only Grandy Nita who brought you Potato in a Jar: Corn in a Box! Corn in a Box comes in a handy, portable cardboard box and can tell your future.
(Results may vary. Grandy Nita is not responsible for poor outlooks or bad fortune.)
Oh man…no wonder my fledgling business, “Potato in Your Tailpipe” never took off. This is a way better idea.
You’re not gonna fall for the banana in the tailpipe? It should be more natural, brother. It should flow out, like this – “Look, man, I ain’t fallin’ for no banana in my tailpipe!” See, that’s more natural for us. You been hanging out with this dude too long.
Here is a website that divulges all of Nita (Grandy)’s trade secrets:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/74880/how_to_root_a_sweet_potato.html?cat=24
Just in case someone wants a sweet potato plant in their house and doesn’t want to pay $30. They actually are pretty plants.
Where’s the love and the prayer in that? You’re paying for the ‘personalized touch’.
I think far more of these would sell if it were called “Pot in a potato” Plant it and in a few weeks a far more useful (if admittedly less attractive) plant pops up
My favorite part is “only takes about 3 weeks to start looking pretty.” Until then, you are stuck with a potato and some dirt. Lovely.
Unless you get the mason jar version. Then you get to watch the excruciatingly slow miracle of root growth! Unless you get that nasty algae that turns the water green and makes it smell like a swamp.
$10?! When I order books from CHINA the delivery costs are still lower.
But are they wrapped with a festive strand of raffia and hand delivered by a little old crazy-lady?
Yeah. Don’t you know it takes a lot of time and energy to hitch all those cats to the sled?
The hard part would be getting them into their little sweaters before harnessing them. With matching tail cozies.
Why do I suspect Grandy Nita Peeta is related to Jack Mullins and his Mee Maw? Maybe it’s the similar strain of down-home crazy I’m scenting in this ad.
My Grandy Nita was so sad when I cam by her house after scool today. Cryoing and looking at this paige on her compouter an she kept saying dam them all to H E dubblehockysticks. I ast if Icould stay and help with the potatoe potts today and play with the bannana and rite some more Mesages from the Yuniverse and she sed no Kaitlyn, she had a appontment with the Doctor, Doctor jack Daniels
my first thought was it’s an attempt to cash in on the Sweet Potato Queens series of books and whatnot…of course, I can’t say for sure, since I haven’t read any of them.
http://www.sweetpotatoqueens.com/
Its funny now Grandy Nita keep s singing the same song over andover. That dirty dirty justin Timber Lake song with the box that Logan shoed me at the park thatday on his Mommys I phone, That Logan ick
The message:
“I was born billions of years ago in a time only vaguely understood by modern science. After several state changes and much cooling the matter within me actually developed the ability to replicate, and later, become conscious of it’s own (and my) existence. This sentience paved the way for many advances in technology, science, economics and the arts. And you’ve chosen to defy this whole evolutionary process by spending time earning the money to then spend on a spud in a jar – you dingus.
Love and kisses
The Universe”
I’d buy if I could get in on some of those ceramic chickens.
THE PERFECT GIFT! EETA PEETA’S FLUFFY BREAD POTS! GROWN IN HIS KITCHEN – $30
Now with a message from miscellaneous and sundry inanimate objects!!!!!
Ehhh…
That was supposed to be “fuzzy” bread… As in mold…
Fluffy is funnier…I’m picturing bread shaped like bunnies and baby chicks and maybe a kitten or a puppy.
Ha ha. Yes that is a crazy idea. Sweet potato in a pot. Ha ha. (Crosses something off of list marked HUGE MONEY MAKERS!) Hmmm. (Mumbling) 50 ft chain of paper clips, never be without. $30 plus $10 delivered with special message from Burt the Janitor. That’s it!
The seller has updated the ad to implore you to ACT FAST!!!
“This would be great as a gift and is grown from Grandy Nita’s own kitchen and put in a pot with a prayer for you and you can add your own destiny message. This is beautiful when it goes into full bloom and only takes about 3 weeks to start looking pretty. It comes with a message from the universe to you or your favorite friend!!!! Will deliver locally for 10.00 THESE HAVE BEEN GOING LIKE CRAZY!!!!! ”
“it’s my pot in a pot…”
step one… go buy a pot
step two… put your pot in a pot
step three… offer people the chance to buy it for 2,803 x the money you spent
oh, and here’s my message from the universe: “ask again later”
your invoice of $100 for reading this advice is in the mail
🙂
I was just driving home with the radio on and heard a Neil Diamond song that reminded me of this post.
“A yam, I said.”
“A yam, I cried!”
“And I yam lost and I don’t even know why.”
“A yam on your windowsill.”
We go into detail to go into detail each a person and the various benefits that every offers.