The Potato Wars

[Reddit Writing Prompt] The world's potatoes suddenly go missing. It is your fault.

We are an army. Earthlings, united on behalf of our home, planet Earth.

One potato.
Two potato.
Three potato.
Four.

Five potato.
Six potato.
Seven potato.
More.

That was it. The agreed upon signal. An army of the strange alien creatures was just visible on the horizon, back-lit by the setting sun. This was the battle. The final World War (more like an Other-Worldly World War). The creatures seemingly showed up out of nowhere; their goal was to eat the world’s now trendy farm-to-table healthy food supply. By God, the Millennial's became incensed, recruiting the entire planet to their cause. “Farm-to-Table! It’s Your Health!” And “Eat Right!” And “Scurvy...The New World Order!” signs and billboards began popping up on every continent, shortly after the aliens began to ravage the planet.

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It was purely by accident that their weakness was discovered early on in the crop invasion. A single Snarferoneous (name origin: The appearance of a hose-like appendage, used as a mouth to suck up food.) apparently wandered a little outside of the safety zone of its newly formed crop circle, smack dab in the middle of a field in Blackfoot, Idaho, deemed the potato capital of the world.

The weird creatures holed up…literally in the ground...began to awaken while more and more crop-circles began to pop up. As the beasts and circles started appearing simultaneously, all over the world (in rural areas) the long-time mystery of the crop circle and the purpose behind it became evident. They were just the exit-points, used by these anteater-sized alien creatures, once they awakened from a dormant state. They had maintained a state of hibernation possibly since the dawn of mankind. Were they alien? Scientists and farmers did not know; but what they did know was they popped out of the circles in droves and they were hangry, intent on eating the world's supply of fruits and vegetables, grasses and grains. It didn't matter...broccoli, lettuce, wheat, artichokes, apples, oranges, edible flowers and garnishes; even the rare forest truffle was not safe from the voracious appetites of these savages. The honey bees were on a rampage, swarming and stinging the beasts as they dipped their gnarly human-like hands into the hives to annihilate even the planet's supply of honey and its precious comb. The entire planet's fresh food sources were at risk.

The particular Blackfoot Idaho beast, staggered out in a confused state, and was spotted by a group of migrant crop harvesters on their lunch break. The farm workers had not even noticed a crop circle in their vicinity earlier in the day as they went about their business, as usual, examining and separating the good potatoes from the bad.

The men found a shady spot to sprawl out while eating and resting, all the while ribbing Paco-the-old-guy, laughing as Paco napped and used his backpack as a pillow. The gnarled  creature ignored the men as it began snarfing up the precious potato crop at an alarming rate...using the hose-like appendage...where its mouth should be. The frightened men exploded to their feet and one burly thuggish guy pulled a gun out of his pack and began firing. The bullets bounced off of the creature...about as damaging as a mild hailstorm would be to a human.

Paco-the-old-guy was awakened at the sound of gunfire. He bolted upright, bleary-eyed and cranky that his siesta was cut short. He picked up a potato, and using a jiggly muscle-less arm, just chucked it at the distracted Snarfer. It was a softly lobbed airborne-missile about as dangerous as a ping pong ball, but the creature went down hard, half of a potato still visible in its snout.

Thus it was discovered...that while bullets, grenades, poisons, traps and smoke bombs could not deter this creature...a single lobbed potato could stop it in its tracks.

The munitions factories of the world, after amassing the entire world's supply of PVC pipe, aerosol spray cans, matches and lighters, stopped production of all things "weapon" and began production of the lowly-and-often-scoffed-at potato gun.

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So here we are at sunset; the citizens of the planet aligned in solidarity and armed with potato guns, ready to destroy this common enemy of the world using every single potato on the planet if necessary. As the horde of Snarfs moves closer, the soon to be extinct potatoes begin flying.

A new world-order, void of potatoes (but fortunately, still populated by farm-to-table restaurants), will soon be upon us; but that's alright. I never really like potatoes that much anyway.

By Lisa H. Owens
Inspired by a Reddit writing prompt 

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