Zero Stars.  Seriously.  Z.e.r.o….

 If you know me in real life, you know that I love my gadgets.   So when I saw a commercial for Tater Mitts, I knew I was definitely going to try them. 

 They claim that you can peel a potato in eight seconds using Tater Mitts and dispose of the inconvenience of potato peelers forever.  Being as I hate peeling potatoes, I was all over it.  

I have to admit that I had visions of peeling potatoes with them on our camping trip, to the amazement of my family.   There would be amazement and in-laws taking turns trying my fascinating new find.  “Nancy always finds the neatest stuff.” 

Soooo not going to happen.  In fact, I’m going to need to bag this sucker back up and stash it in my car to return before my husband gets home or else the story around the campfire will be how I got suckered into yet another product that doesn’t work.   Much like the exploding Egg Wave incident of 1999. 

 Lets start at the beginning.  I was very excited to see the Tater Mitts at Linens and Things (for 14.99).   I was even more excited to buy them.  I called my best friend on her cell phone.  I could hardly wait to get home and hide them until my husband left for work put them aside until the morning when I could dedicate some time to try them and pre-write my Works for Me Wednesday post at Rocks In My Dryer for the week.   I would be a hero.  I would get views-o-plenty.  

 Again…  soooo not. 

 This morning, after the kids had had breakfast and were watching Spongebob a carefully chosen educational video, I opened the box and took them out. 

 They are your basic blue rubber gloves except they have hard rubber pieces glued to them.   The shape and texture reminds me of the gravel you put in an aquarium, other than being rubber.  The gloves themselves are pretty big – I’m guessing size extra large.   Not exactly sized for my hands, but not a huge deal either. 

 I put them on and picked up a carefully chosen basic russett potato.  I rubbed as vigorously as I could with huge rubber gloves on my hands.  After about a minute I was getting a small amount of  what really amounted more to surface shredding and grooving (much like anything else would be if scraped across gravel) than peeling.  I could see some small strips of peeled potato so I kept going.  After about another minute (2+ minutes total), I gave up. 

 I wondered if maybe the glove concept and my apparently freakishly small hands had something to do with this product not working.  Maybe if I took off the glove and held it over the center part of my double sink we might get somewhere.  I grabbed another potato and started that way  We did.  It worked.  It took a lot of elbow grease (much like scrubbing a pan) and about two minutes, but I got most of the peel off. 

So after about four minutes total I had one potato that was about 40% peeled and another that was about 75% peeled. 

 So it CAN be done.  But you can also bake a cake in an Easy-Bake oven over a lightbulb.  But it takes for.e.ver.  Much like the Tater Mitts. 

 And I don’t have that kind of time.  Especially since now I have to come up with something else to do for Works for Me Wednesday. 

Oh well.  Live and learn (to keep your receipts).

 Nancy