We Tomatoes

We Tomatoes

Despite what people may say, tomatoes are a fruit. Not because they have seeds. Vegetables, such as squash, have seeds as well, but are in fact vegetables. Tomatoes are classified as a fruit because they grow on a plant. It is a common misconception that tomatoes are a vegetable because of how wonderfully complex of a fruit they are.

I once saw a toothbrush commercial that involved the actor using two tomatoes to represent the gums of the human mouth. The tomato that was brushed with this particular toothbrush was firm and healthy. The second tomato was used to represent gums that are not caressed daily by the wondrous bristles of the advertised toothbrush. This tomato was everything but firm. Wrinkled, creased and saggy. That’s what tomatoes do. They are firm and they eventually sag. We are born as babies, with our skin soft, firm and full. To the point of fear that if the tightly bound exterior is poked or squeezed too hard, it would give way to all that it is containing. But, inevitably, as time moves ever onward, the skin becomes saggy, wrinkled and creased. We tomatoes.

The most repulsive part of the tomato is what’s on the inside. That mucus-y disgusting slime. Gelatin like. Cutting and breaking the skin of the tomato causes a leak, exposing the living slime to writhe out onto the cutting board. Ironically, the most revolting part of this nutritious fruit also contains the most important part: the seeds. The entrails of the tomato. The most sordid part of the human body is what is on the inside of our ever increasingly wrinkling shells: the innards. This most repulsive part of us contains the most vital part of our anatomy: the organs. We tomatoes.

There are different types and sizes of tomatoes, which provide us with a variety to choose from. No matter ones taste, there just may be a tomato for you. With roughly 7,500 different types of tomatoes, we are by no means bound to a specific type. One is bound to find a tomato that suits them. Though it is commonly thought that tomatoes are only red, there is actually a colorful tomato spectrum of reds, oranges, yellows, pinks, browns, purples and greens. A plethora of shapes and sizes are also available for the choosing. Brandywines, Black Krim, and Green Zebras. Beefsteak tomatoes are hefty and stout. Roma tomatoes are trim and lean. Cherry tomatoes are small, bite-sized and the most mucus filled tomato. Glory in the diversity of tomatoes in the world. Glory in the diversity of humans in the world. With such a variety of shapes, colors and sizes, one is bound to find someone that pleases them. We tomatoes.

The life span of a tomato is short lived and rather uneventful. Grow, ripen, wrinkle, decay and fall. Are we that different? Are we longer, more fully lived tomatoes? Grow, ripen, wrinkle, decay and fall. We tomatoes.

Essay

I have an assignment that is due tomorrow. To write a creative non-fiction essay on whatever I want. You would think that with such a broad and open topic that this would be a somewhat easy task. Well, you would be wrong my friend. I have been working on this essay for hours. I originally decided to write the essay on the pygmy hippo. Yes, the PYGMY hippo. Same basic animal as the common hippo, but much, much smaller, and therefore even cuter. So I started out my paper with a story. An Argentine woman once attempted to analyze my personality by asking me my three favorite animals and my reasons for picking them. Of course, the hippo was number one on that list. Number two was the giant three-toed sloth, and number three was the flamingo. My third has since changed, but that is beside the point.

I began my essay with this story and listing my animals and reasons beginning with number three with the intention of leading up to number one, the hippo. I never made it past number two. You see, my reasons for liking the giant three-toed sloth is a bit complicated. It has a lot to do with a rather long story...what's that? You want to hear the story. Well...alright.

"A tour guide, for the sake of the story we will call him Tim, was guiding a tour (imagine that) through a rain forest. One month previous to Tim’s tour, a giant three-toed sloth, we’ll call him Ron, was asleep in a tree. In the rain forest, as you may have guessed, it rains. Ron, being a three-toed sloth, and therefore extremely lazy, slept right through a large rainstorm hanging in a tree, upside down. The three-toed sloth, though it may only have three toes, have an amazingly strong grip. Ron was so lazy, he did not wake up during that rainstorm. Ron drowned in that rainstorm. But when Ron met his demise, he did not fall from his final resting place. He remained there for the entire month, until, you guessed it, Tim and his tour came through the rain forest. Ron’s decaying body was so waterlogged from his cause of death that he eventually became so heavy he fell from the tree just as Tim was guiding his tour just underneath of Ron’s death tree. Ron fell on Tim and immediately killed him. Leaving Tim’s tour guide-less in the middle of the rain forest. And that’s a true story."

You may think me twisted for liking this story, and you are welcome to keep thinking that.

So my essay about hippos ended up being about the only story I know about the giant three-toed sloth.

I quickly decided to start over completely. I began a new essay on the topic of tomatoes. I started with the intention of incorporating the fact that I use to HATE, and I mean HATE tomatoes, but taught myself to like them by eating at least one tomato every day for 16 months in Argentina. As you probably guessed, the essay did not end up including that tidbit of information. I ended up pointing out the similarities between the composition and life of a tomato to ours as human beings. As of now it is not finished, but it is titled, We Tomatoes.

I hope to post it for your reading pleasures as soon as it is finished.

Until then.