The tomato

By Todd Stadler · Monday, April 24, 2006 11:23pm

I bet all the edible plants hate the tomato. Think about it.

I mean, the tomato has totally sold out. And I'm not even talking about how it traitorously turned its back on all its fruit brothers. "Screw you guys, I don't care if I am the ripened ovary of a flowering plant — I'm not waiting around in a bowl to be painted by some hack! Off to the exciting world of vegetables for me! See you at breakfast sometime, okay?" And so on.

I'm talking about how the tomato wants it all, whoring itself to get into every meal. Lunch time? "I'm great on a sandwich!" Dinner? "You practically can't make a salad without me, and I'm a key component of many soups and dishes!" Yes, even breakfast: "Equally tasty in an omelette as with, say, some cream cheese and a bagel!"

I mean, give it a freakin' rest, Tomato Tom! Let the other veggies — of whom you are not one — have some plate-time, okay?

Sometimes, the tomato even suggests itself as a snack — "Try a garden-fresh one of me with salt on top! Mmmm!" — but, forgive me, that's too much.

But it's not just the "Me! Me! Me!" stuff that makes the tomato so annoying. It's how it tries to have it both ways in the health department.

I mean, consider the potato. Sure, it long ago said goodbye to the veggie world and joined ranks with the meats and cheeses of the world, but at least it's up-front about it: "I often appear on plates where I am the only 'vegetable', smothered in tasty fats and next to giant hunks of meat, but hey, it's a job."

You don't see potatoes galavanting about in salads, right? Fine, there's potato "salad", but nobody's fooled by that. It's just our friend the potato, doing his usual schtick, and isn't that nice.

But tomatoes just have to be everywhere, whether you're eating something guaranteed to give you a heart attack, like a McDonald's Big N' Nasty® ... er, Tasty®, or something very healthy, like a McDonald's Bacon Ranch Salad. I mean, give me a break!

If the tomato had its way, we'd all be sucking down Tomato Coke® right now. And as Patrick Henry might have said, "I will brook no Tomato Coke®. Like, ew."

Anyhow, that's what I'm sayin'. Tomatoes, right? Straight up!