Squishing the tomato

No, this is not a "is that what they call it now?" story. I did squish a tomato. And admit it.

My mom decided it was a good day to visit a local meat store, why... I've no idea. Perhaps she wished to buy some meats. Usually she buys what she desires in the supermarket, but today,she had to go to the specialty shop. OK, sure... we can do this.

This was a very quick trip, somewhat complicated because her new walker is a bit bulkier than her previous one, this one has big wheels on it, as well as a seat and hand brakes, maybe I should drive this thing to work. However, it does not fold as flat as more basic models. So I wiggled, writhed, and got it into a position in the back seat where it would not smack her in the back of the head with a quick stop.

Another complication was the outside appearance of my car. Simply... disgusting. There are these trees at work along the periphery of the parking lot, and well.. this time of year they do their dirty bird imitation, dropping these well, droppings, that look like reddish brown bird poop, and indeed, my mom thought it was well, reddish brown bird poop. I just cleaned the car off Wednesday, and Friday it was seriously bombed again. It really did look pretty gross - white car, treebombed ersatz poop, that did look in some places like bloody bird poop. Mom refused to touch the door handle thinking she would be putting her hand on bloody bird poop, leaving this to me. Moms always see to the well being of their children.

Upon leaving the meat store, she then wished to venture to the supermarket to fetch other supplies, so I interceded and made an executive decision to first return home and get the bloody tree poop off my dirty white car, less mom faint having to suddenly reach out for balance against the car,placing her hand in the bloody tree poop.

After saying we'd head back out post scrubbing, I filled a bucket with water and soap, grabbed a regular sponge, a plastic scour pad, and set upon my auto. That scour pad would normally not touch my car, but this bloody tree poop is stronger than gorilla glue, and the pad easily removed it, whereas a sponge is no match for the splattered droppings from those unknown types of trees. I'm guessing they are alien to this planet.

Car once again clean, passing the mom touch test, we set out first for the farmstands south of the city, stopping at two for various veggies. Nothing like fresh veggies, mmmmmmmm. At the second stand, the building is set on top of a slight incline. A worker was adding new veggies to a cart, and a wayward tomato rolled down about ten feet to the side of my car. When we got out, I once again wrestled and writhed the walker out of the back seat, and looked around, no tomato. Funny, no one chased it down.. and it occurred to me that tomato somehow found it's way under my newly cleaned car.

We buy whatever it is we bought, um red lettuce, sweet potatoes, beet greens, and maybe one other item, head back to the car. No tomato in sight. We back out. And there it is. Squished tomato, Dammit.

We head back homeward, making a slight diversion through the airport so my mom could reminisce about the army air force planes there during WWII, the days of bringing us to watch planes take off, as well as utter a few ohmahgawds, what is that's, and I cannot believe how much this has changed, then we capped it off with the supermarket hoedown.

This part is always fun, mom is slow as a turtle when I am with her, but just let me wander off to grab something, and good luck finding her, she is liable to be 5 rows over and at the far end of the aisle. I would love to see a videotape of her *after* I walk away. Marion Jones, no doubt.