Potato 60 - Biscuit 61

Through thick and thin
Through fortune and fate
The biscuit was always the potato’s best mate
Over several decades, this unlikeliest of teams
Have shared their home and values and dreams.

Then one day, the potato got rather afraid
“I’ve been around six decades and I think I’ve decayed!
My skin’s getting rough, my jacket’s tight on bum and hips
I’m getting wobbly and knobbly, I think I’ve had my chips!”

The biscuit hugged his spud and said “It’s you I still adore,
Even though you’re not a new potato any more.
You’ve got so much ahead…and if I dare risk it
You’re so sweet to still put up with a snappy old biscuit!”

“When it comes to the crunch, don’t you see?
You have so many advantages over me
I’m just a sweet-talking, five chew wonder
Yet without you whole populations can go under”

“While I’m just blind baked you keep growing new eyes
And while I’m stacked in a pack you can top all kinds of pies
When life demands you can always rehash
As boiled, sauteed, dauphinoise or mash”

“As for edibility I’m far more time-poor
Instantly munchable while they’d never eat you raw
When biscuit ageing sets in you get floppy and soggy
And then scattered to the birds or fed to a doggy
You get one chance to shine, replaced every week
You never get a second chance as bubble and squeak!”

I know I can be crumbly and have too much on my plate
But I’d do anything to cheer up my best potato mate.”
So they had a little smile and let their different strengths dovetail
Agreeing to grow old disgracefully and keep out of grumpy jail.
And the morale of this story? Forget Shakespeare, Freud and Plato
If you’ve got a biscuit at sixty, you can still be a happy potato.