When I was about 9/10 years old I was visiting my mom up in Fort Wayne. My mom didn’t cook very many types of things but there were a few she could do well. Whenever she made mashed potatoes she didn’t use that instant crap, she made real mashed potatoes. Whipped them up with milk and butter, a little salt and pepper, so good. Well I love mashed potatoes and I remember one day in particular she made them for dinner.

As my mother and my sister were in the kitchen making the potatoes I was sitting at the table in the dining room.  After a bit they were done and my mom sits a big bowl down in front of me and walks back into the kitchen. Well I see her and my sister peeking around the corner and giggling and laughing, just watching me. Hmmm, right away I’m suspicious. I look at the bowl and notice there’s black flecks all mixed in the mashed potatoes. So I ask “What’s the black stuff?” My mom tells me “It’s pepper, just eat it”. Again I just sit there and watch them as they keep glancing at me then each other with smirks on their faces. I’m not stupid so I know something is up.

Now I’m really starting look close at the bowl. Finally I figured it out. I can see chunks of black, brown, legs, antennae “OH MY GOD THERE’S COCKROACHES IN HERE!!!” My mom and sister bust out laughing and tell me that when my mom turned on the mixer to mix the potatoes cockroaches fell out and were chopped up in the potatoes. They thought it would be funny to watch me eat it. And oh yes, my mother would have let me eat them. Wouldn’t doubt if she had before. At least I wasn’t my little brother; she let him eat worse…