A spudtacular mess-up baffled shoppers and staff at Canadian Tire stores across southern Ontario this week.

On the morning of Monday, June 29, customers filed into Canadian Tire stores in Lindsay and Whitby as usual, filling baskets as they browsed through the aisles. 

However, upon getting to a point of sale, people quickly realized that there was something completely bizarre happening.

Cash register attendants were left bewildered after every single item they scanned came up reading "Mr. Potato Head."

No matter what staff tried, the glitch couldn't be corrected, and workers were eventually forced to temporarily close their stores.

“This was an anomaly that occurred only at our Lindsay and Whitby stores," explained Canadian Tire rep Cathy Kurzbock, speaking to Kawartha 411 News.

The company attributed the unappeeling issue to a downloading error, which caused item names to instead appear the same as the popular children's toy.

"It has since been corrected and the stores are operating normally,” Kurzbock said.

According to the company's head office, a total of five Canadian Tire stores in Lindsay and Whitby were impacted by the computer system glitch.

It's good to see that they eventually got to the "root" of the problem!