Potatishandlaren

In this Swedish TV drama, a once-kittenish young woman has become a fortyish spinster, still helping her widowed father on the family farm. Marta drives tractors, does the planting and harvesting, and helps to maintain the property. Meanwhile her father Johansson worries and wonders if his aging daughter will ever find a man to marry her. Into this tense situation comes Sture, the potato seller, hawking his wares door to door. Sture is tall and strong and about Marta's age, and in him the old farmer sees a possible son-in-law. Here, the author inserts a comic catalyst: As Sture is driving onto the property, Marta who has been on the barn roof, repairing some shingles is distracted and accidentally slides down the unfinished roof, resulting in several painful splinters being lodged in her backside. She gamely walks over to meet the potato salesman, and it's love at first sight... but first, he must use his pliers to remove the splinters from his new sweetheart's behind. Freed from both the splinters and her forty years of inhibition, Marta brightens up and becomes the love-directed female she was meant to be.