Potatoes on the Highway

Somewhere in New Mexico. I was driving a truck, that is, hauling donated potatoes. Fortunately, the donations are always given with that "do what you think is best with it" mentality.
The differential went out. I didn't have a spare one in my back pocket - had limited tools with me anyway. I was a ways off from home at the time, stuck on the side of the road - help was coming. Well, in that organization, when they told me that, help might be coming - and could be days from actually getting there.

I was broke. I mean, no money at all, for anything. I was supposed to make it back the day the truck broke down and I would be eating at the main kitchen and sleeping in my own bed that night.

Didn't happen. Ummm, so I was hungry, too. I found some boards, made 2 huge signs: potatoes for sale - don' remember what I was charging for them. These were culled potatoes - the seconds, the product that the grower can't ship to a supermarket chain or wherever because they don't look perfect or there is something otherwise wrong with them.

But there were plenty of nice, good looking taters in there. I sold enough to last a couple of days worth of eating and then took the signs down. I know, it's kind of a tacky story, but it gets worse.

Well, not worse, just different. Most people don't switch out differentials on the side of the road. When my buddy arrived in another semi with a differential, a cherry picker and a lot of tools, we went straight to work, right there. Had it done in half a day, got the truck up and running down the road.

Short story, but sweet and to the point.