Sack of Potatoes

The old man stood there, in the middle of the street, staring. He wasn't staring in a particular way or with a particular face. However, he was staring at something in particular. It was a sack of potatoes.
This would be a perfectly normal picture -if rather unusual- had the old man not been talking with the sack of potatoes.
Now, there are several things wrong with the above sentence. For example, why would an old man -in fact, why would a man, woman or child of any age- strike up a conversation with a sack of potatoes, or any kind of container full of vegetables for that matter. However, that could probably be attributed to the old man's senility or dementia (or loneliness I suppose). The other concept that seems wrong, is that he was talking with it and not to it. People do generally tend to talk to inanimate objects, threaten or cajole them if they don't work, curse them when they bang their little toe against them etc. However, they generally never get a reply or at least not one that can be helpful or understood. And they certainly don't expect one.
This old man, on the other hand, was having a rather casual chat with this sack of potatoes. I suppose in a way that's tragic, or at least a bit sad. Poor old guy, so demented and senile, not only was he asking the sack of potatoes what it thought about the weather, he was expecting -and in his head also getting- an answer.
Of course the sack of potatoes never did reply. Or in fact perceive, let alone understand, the question directed at it. It was -in a very anthropomorphic sense- oblivious to the old man. This was not due to lack of trying. Neither arrogance. It was rather due to the combined effect of growing up underground and in the dark and, well, being a mass of vegetable cells with no discernible anatomy, sensory apparatuses or a processing system -central or otherwise- and therefore functioning at a very distinctly different cognitive level of consciousness. Should the sack of potatoes be able to understand the old man and be able to produce a coherent response, it is almost certain that it would be more than happy to indulge in some friendly, casual banter.
Alas, the old man and the sack of potatoes would never truly communicate.

(Several years later and after the old man had died, a very giggly fairy -we suspect she was stoned- granted the sack of potatoes' wish and turned it into a real boy)