tomatoes

This morning on the way to work, I found myself on a subway car with a group of loud mouthed, annoying high-schoolers. One of the kids, an overly geekish boy, thought he was much too cool and decided to share a story with his friends ... at the top of his lungs. The story?

"Yeah, so we had the LONGEST make-out session yesterday. And she just wouldn't leave. I had to kick her out because I had to study. I mean, my tongue was so tired. Know what I'm sayin'?"

I wanted to smack this kid and tell him to stop acting like such an idiot. If not, he's going to be a 40-year old virgin. I hope my friends and I weren't this annoying and puerile as high schoolers. However, I am ashamed to admit that we most likely were.

I had to run some errands during lunch time. As I walked down the street, a cute family was walking down the street in the other direction. Mom and Dad had fallen right out of the J. Crew catalogue. And little Timmy or Tommy, who must have been 3, was holding each of his parents' hands. So sweet. As the family approached, I glanced at the little boy's T-Shirt. It said, in capital letters, and I quote:

"MIDWIVES HELP CHILDREN."

Huh?

After my errands, I grabbed a burrito. While I ate it, I decided that the bites I took that had tomato were quite good. I concluded that tomatoes make everything better. Salads, sandwiches, burritos. Yes, I can safely say tomatoes improve any culinary experience. But then I started to drift off into the land of stream-of-consciousness. I thought about foods my mom makes that have tomatoes. And then I thought, you know, when my parents speak Gujrati, they refer to tomatoes as "Tamatas." I wondered, is "tamatas" the real Gujrati word for tomatoes, or is just an adaptation? Are there even tomatoes in India? Or do they get them from other places? I was nearly lost in the irrelevance of my thoughts.

My mind wandered further: If "tamata" is really the Gujrati word for "tomato", what the heck happened? I imagined it to be one long, inter-continental game of telephone. Start in America. The word is "tomato" ... pass it on. And many years later, a little man in a village in India eats a red fruit (yes, it's a fruit) and says "Ahh, acha ... Tamata!"