Potatoes and Accoutrements

About two years ago, my dad and I were cleaning out the cabinets and we found some very far gone potatoes. It's not really unusual or anything because we don't eat potatoes much, and they almost always degenerate to some kind of pathetic sludge in the bottom of our cabinet. This time was slightly different though because we found a potato with what looked like someone's genetic finger mutation experiment gone wrong sticking out of it. My father, being a know-it-all, quickly explained to me that this potato was not a diseased freak of nature but that it was actually growing. The potato had managed to perform a miracle of life in our kitchen cabinet. The nasty long albino finger things were actually tendrils of the potato plant, and they were white because the potato had been growing without sun, so no chlorophyll. We then planted it in our backyard, though I doubt we'll ever harvest anything from it, because we mostly don't eat potatoes.
So that's nice and all, but how did it grow? Potatoes are plants. Plants need sun, water, and soil (I learned that from The Magic Schoolbus). This potato had nothing except his rotting brethren, which I suppose could count as the soil in this case. What the fuck? How'd it do that? I don't know. I do know that this makes me think of roaches. If you cut off a roach's head it will supposedly live for another two weeks. Roaches can supposedly live through a nuclear explosion. Perhaps potatoes are the same way. They do have a lot in common. Roaches and potatoes are both brown, they live in our kitchens, they are extremely virulent and prosperous in Mississippi, and sometimes you will find one godforsaken individual of either a roach or a potato that is albino. That shit's gross, man. If you ever see an albino roach, your faith will be rocked and just for a little while, you will think there is no God, no one would voluntarily make that thing. The only striking difference between roaches and potatoes is that potatoes can't move. If they could, though, you can bet we would have invented a potato-swatter to control THE SCOURGE.