As I watched My Darling B carefully arrange wedges of potato in a trench before covering them in dirt and straw, I asked her, “Why don’t you use a potato planter to do that?”

“Because I like playing in the dirt,” was the first part of her answer — and then she said the most amazing, blasphemous words I’ve ever heard anyone utter: “Besides, you don’t need a gadget for everything.”

The horror! The horror!