The lady in the launderette was cross with me again. “It’s two shirts this time. Some of your best ones too.” She is an expert on the quality of all my shirts. “You know there is nothing I can do. You’re just as bad as Tom [her husband]. I keep telling him I’ll have to get him a bib.”
The implication was obvious but I refused to be drawn. I reminded her again that I wear a tie. It did not impress her then either, similar to previous occasions. Her pride in her work was what was at stake, not my ability to hide stains. “You know there is no way I can remove a tomato stain. It’s impossible,” she told me.
By now I’ve been very well educated by her in this irrevocable, recalcitrant fact. It took me by surprise the first time she told me. Until then I’d associated tomatoes with all that is good, sweet and wholesome.
And she told me about the man who, only the previous week, had parked outside the launderette door. “Tom saw him too,” she continued with a laugh. “He took out a bib, tucked it into his collar and had his lunch right there in the driver’s seat.”
The implied suggestion was once again clear but there was no way I was going to agree to wear a bib. “But I can’t drive,” I said. She met this with a bewildered look, as though I’d said I couldn’t wear a bib because I hadn’t a car. It was reasonable on her part.
Her distress over my shirts of many colours stained by tomato is all my fault. It’s rooted in a love of tomato-related foods and the fact that I am a slob. In time to come should archaeologists uncover any of my shirts they will easily establish my diet.
I have always loved tomatoes. As a small boy my mother once sent me to the shop to get some. There were 11 in the bag. I know. Later that evening I raided the bag and ate every single one. In trouble once more. It is a fruit, by the way. The word is derived from the Spanish 16th-century word tomate, meaning "the swelling fruit". Tomatoes originated in the South American Andes and were first used as food in Mexico.
