Michigan woman opens a cupboard with potatoes from fall. What she finds a few months later shocks the internet: ‘That’s their house now’

Potatoes left in the dark usually rot and emit a pungent stench, but that’s not what happened with the potatoes in this Michigan woman’s (@piami4) cupboard. on TikTok Instead of rotting, the potatoes defied all odds and started searching for light.

The caption of the video reads, “You had a massive harvest of potatoes last fall but no room in the pantry, so you put them under the bar and just remembered them now.” These potatoes weren’t buried in the soil. They had neither water nor sunlight. But they all sprouted from a forgotten paper bag.

Another man from the video tried to take the bag out of the cupboard, only to reveal extremely long, spaghetti-like sprouts. They’d grown so much that one potato started sprouting from an adjacent drawer and got stuck in it.

All the potatoes were successfully taken out, but TikTok was horrified nevertheless. One TikTok commenter wrote, “Potatoes do the scariest shit when left unattended.”

Another said, “i hate when you forget about potatoes and they turn evil.” The gangly appearance of the sprouts seem to have terrified most on social media. Others thought of the potatoes as ‘survivors.”

One said of the potatoes, “Plant them. They survived this long. They deserve to become plants.”

Even Walmart’s official TikTok account commented on the potato fiasco. They wrote, “that’s their house now.”

But this scenario could happen to anyone—potatoes could even sprout in refrigerators, so long as the environment offers enough moisture and enough heat. The cabinet was likely moist, and while it was devoid of sunlight, potatoes are known to be sturdy root crops.

TikTok develops an emotional attachment to the potatoes

Oddly enough, TikTok seems to have developed an attachment to the potatoes in the video. They defied all the odds, after all—so were they at least planted? From a gardener’s perspective, planting sprouted potatoes should be easy. Piami4 on TikTok is known for her gardening videos, so she wouldn’t need potato starters for this season.

In her next video captioned “Where is the soil?!”, the potatoes were finally planted. Commenters in the previous video were making fun of the potatoes, assuming that the produce sprouted in search of sunlight and soil.

Commenters were definitely pleased that the potatoes are going to be given the chance to become plants. They wrote, “I’m so happy for them. They worked really hard.”

One social media user even joked, “Now plant them but don’t forget about the next batch.” Needless to say, nobody ever wants to see abused potatoes ever again after this.

Can the potatoes be eaten?

Another said, “This is how The Last of Us starts!” While the video game’s virus began all because of mushrooms, the gangly potato sprouts did look like they could appear in The Last of Us. In reality, it’s normal for potato plants to have pink stalks. They’re usually covered in leaves and even bear flowers, but obviously, the cupboard potatoes didn’t have the right conditions to become proper plants.

Nevertheless, the cupboard potatoes—so long as they don’t have mold—are safe to eat. They are visibly dehydrated, though, which wouldn’t make them the tastiest potatoes to consume. Besides, they fought so hard to be plants. It’s better that they’re never eaten at all and given the chance to bloom in full.

(featured images: Mateus Belarmino, Piami4)

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