On the way home, I walked past Hamburger Chain. It was quite late in the evening and I had not eaten dinner. The youths were milling about in cars and on foot, yelling and laughing. I saw them doing all manner of unbecoming things. They dropped their rubbish on the ground. They dropped their disgusting and greasy paper bags on the ground. And the bags they dropped were sodden with sundry juices: hamburger juice, pickle juice, meat juice, onion juice, tomato juice, cheese juice, cola juice, “potato fries” juice, chicken nugget juice. One group, I saw, were all laughing at something. Perhaps it was a particularly phallic pickle. I do not know. I dared not get close to such puerile creatures. Inside the building there was a security guard but he did not do anything about this vile display. I would much rather eat a baked potato at home than have to observe this indecency.

I went further down the road, past Shopworths, and turned onto a quiet sidestreet. I thought about my baked potatoes and realised that even now, in my state of apparent adulthood, I had many unanswered questions on the nature of potatoes. What is the lifespan of an average potato plant? Man eats potatoes; but what do the potatoes eat? Presumably a potato is not a fruit; if not, what of the potato fruit itself – is it edible? I was getting to the bottom of something really deep when my phone started to vibrate once more. I could no longer concentrate on my potatoes with this device demanding my attention at every waking moment. I took the phone out of my pocket (front left trouser). The lit screen displayed several noisome communications, none of which I had any desire to read. I threw the phone down onto the asphalt of the road. Up the phone bounced, back up to the height of my head, then started to fall back down before bouncing a few more times further down the street. I went over to where it lay to better judge my handiwork. The abominable machine was completely unscathed. I raised my left foot, which is the slightly larger of the two, and brought its boot-shod fury down upon the phone. Again my efforts were for naught. The phone remained intact and its little backlit monochrome screen continued to mock me. I jumped up and down on the bastard a few times, barely able to keep my balance. Finally the case gave way and the screen went dark. After a few more stomps, I was satisfied. I picked up the scattered pieces and walked the rest of the way home. I was free.