Attack of the Killer Tomato

It was a simple idea. A couple of eggs, and a sliced tomato for breakfast. There was one juicy on-the-vine-product-of-Mexico red orb remaining in the fruit bowl.

Eggs arranged on a plate, I reached for the tomato. Which felt, um, bumpy. Looked at it. It WAS bumpy. Like a nerdy boy before the invention of Clearasil. Scratched the surface, and...oh my!

It was ALIVE!

Sigourney Weaver came to mind immediately.

And then I realized that I had eaten the other three tomatoes from that very same vine. And I'd been feeling a little queasy, off and on. I wondered if an MRI could detect tendrils.

Whoa. What if the problem wasn't just the tomatoes? What if, due to Global Warming, there had been a Cosmic Shift, and Radioactive Energy was now bathing the house?

Or, maybe the microwave was leaking. It was awfully old, and close to the fruit bowl.

I peeled the two grapefruits and the clementine, which were neighbors of the tomato. They looked OK. Surely, if it was Global Warming or a leaking microwave, it would have affected them, too.

So the only possible explanation was Tomato Aliens.

Mexican Tomato Aliens.

This begged the question: To whom do you report Mexican Tomato Aliens? The grocery store where you purchased the tomatoes? The CDC? FDA? The Immigration and Customs Department?

I made a cup of coffee, and ate the eggs (but not the egg yolks, I gave those to the dogs) while I pondered my predicament. If I went to the store with my find, the chain would have to open an investigation. Trace the Tomato Pedigree. Call in all those acronyminous federal agencies. Who would ban the import of tomatoes from Mexican farmers, devastating the economy, and resulting in the closing of that hotel we like in Zihuatanejo. And I'd be accused of harboring a personal grudge against Mexican tomatoes...even though I would have done the same thing if the tomatoes were a product of Guam. (Just FYI and CYA - I like Guam! Shirley's Coffee House is my favorite breakfast place in the whole world! Really!)

A moment of clarity, as I loaded the egg dish into the dishwasher. I couldn't share my discovery. Couldn't risk the destruction of the Mexican economy; even though that would lead to a sharp increase in tomato farming on Guam, which could really use the business.

I had to deal with my Mexican Tomato Aliens alone.

Luckily, a Google search turned up lots of websites with patterns for aluminum foil hats.