- A neighborhood in Jackson, Mississippi, has a bit of a mashed potato problem.
- As in, bowls of mashed potatoes are turning up in random places around the town.
- No one knows why or how or even if the potatoes are good.
- Weird, huh!
- No one has contacted authorities. This is just the new normal.
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It sounds harmless, silly even. But for residents of the Belhaven neighborhood in Jackson, Mississippi, it's becoming something of a serious concern: Bowls of mashed potatoes are showing up everywhere and no one knows where they are coming from, reported the Washington Post.
Bowls of potatoes in a variety of forms have shown up all over town — on people's mailboxes, cars, and even front doors.
"I walked outside yesterday morning at 7 a.m. and I got in my car and that’s when I noticed a while bowl on my windshield," Jordan Lewis, who has lived in the area for five years, told NBC-affiliated WLBT."It was full of rainwater. I threw it away and I was grossed out by it."
And Lewis isn't the only one. Michaela Lin, another Belhaven resident, saw a bowl of the goods on her mailbox.
"I had no idea what to think when I saw it!" she told WLBT.
Read more: Police were called to a suspected burglary. Instead, they found a Roomba.
But when Lin started asking around, she learned that people around town had just been ... finding bowls of the stuff. "I thought, 'Oh, this is happening a lot today,''" she said.
Sebastian Bjernegard, who found bowls of mashed potatoes on his front porch, told CBS-affiliated WJTV that he didn't dare try the stuff for fear of being poisoned.
"Some people were thinking maybe the mashed potatoes were poisoned to kill animals," he said. "I didn't taste it, I have a 3-second rule, so I didn't touch it."
But that's not the only theory that the mashed potato "victims" have circulated amongst themselves.
"I have realized some of the 'victims’ of the mashed potatoes are actually staff or Belhaven students or alumni," Lin theorized, speaking to WLBT. "I feel like there has to be a connection there!”
Lewis agreed, speculating that it could be "a harmless prank by some kids or college students in the area."
But aside from that there have been no leads on tracking down this alleged, mysterious prankster.
“I think they have done a good job of keeping themselves anonymous. Whoever it is, I am excited to see if they do something like this again,” Lin told WLBT, laughing.
But WJTV reports that everyone is under the impression that this is all in good fun — so no one has gotten the local law enforcement involved.
"This neighborhood does a lot of quirky things, we decorate road signs we put Christmas trees in our potholes, so it's not surprising at all," Lewis told WJTV. "That's why I love this neighborhood; because they do so many strange things, but it's definitely one of the weirdest things I've seen since living in Jackson."
Ah, authentic small-town charm!
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