Tomato Chase

By Devidedistand

There’s this guy. A guy named Tom, to be exact. Right now he is using the bathroom, so let’s wait for him to get out.

Fourteen minutes later…

Okay, now that that’s taken care of, where were we? Oh yes, this is Tom. It’s 10 O’clock in the morning and he’s very hungry.

“Tomato soup,” he mumbled as he stumbled out of the bathroom, toilet paper clinging to the heel of his bunny slipper. It was the left slipper.

“Tomatoes?” he asked himself. Tom fumbled through the cupboards for several minutes before realizing they did not contain what he desired.

He rummaged through the fridge. There was plenty of food. But there were no tomatoes.

“Can’t make tomato soup without tomatoes,” he frowned.

At that moment Tom’s roommate, Andrew, came into the kitchen. “Mornin’, Tom,” he said.

“Do we have tomatoes?” Tom inquired.

“Nah, sorry bro. We’re all out,” Andrew answered. “Hey, dude, I gotta run to the store. Catch ya later, man.” Andrew left.

“Bye bye.”

Tom sat on the torn blue couch in the living room. He scratched his chin quizzically for a second or two.

He checked under the cushions. Still, a tomato was not found. Hm, Andrew must have cleaned.

“Ah ha!” he said aloud. “If I want to get a tomato, I should go ask someone for one!”

He hurried out of the house, locking the door on his way out.

Tom scurried up the rickety stairs of the broken-down apartment building, all the way to the top floor. He knocked on the lime-green door of the manager’s home, labeled 228.

No answer. He peeped through the peek hole. He couldn’t see anything though.

Tom raised his hand to knock again as the manager opened the door. He knocked on her head.

“TOM!” she shouted!

She was wearing a puffy purple bathrobe with… bunny slippers.

“Tom, what in blazes do you want at this hour in the morning?” she nagged.

“Sorry, Ms. Kanker. Do you have tomatoes?” Tom asked.

“What?”

“I said, ‘SORRY, MS. KAN…”

“I HEARD WHAT YOU SAID!”

“Oh. Do you have tomatoes?” Tom asked, puzzled.

Ms. Kanker scratched a large hairy mole on her cheek. “No, Tom. I don’t have any tomatoes.”

“Oh. Okay,” he sighed.

Tom moped down the stairs as Ms. Kanker watched the strand of toilet paper stuck to his slipper.

“Poor soul,” she uttered before creeping back behind the lime-green door.

O O O

Tom walked along the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets. There was lint in there, and he was content to wiggle it between his fingers for a while.

On the side of a random apartment complex on a random street corner, sat a random bum in shaggy clothing. He wore dirty, pink bunny slippers. Maybe it was a new trend. He stroked his beard.

With a gruff voice the hobo muttered, “Hey, buddy. Got a dollar?”

“Got a tomato?” Tom asked.

The ragbag raised an eyebrow and then said slowly, “As a matter of fact I do.”

“Really? Can I have it?”

“Yeah. Yeah, you can. But, see, I gotta eat too. Let me have a dollar and I’ll give you your tomato. Deal?”

Tom retrieved a wallet from his linty pocket. He plucked a dollar out of it.

Before Tom knew what happened, the swindler snatched the wallet and made off with it. Tom was left with a single dollar in his possession.

“No tomatoes?”

O O O

Tom’s stomach growled as he slumped toward the local Jip-Mart. It suddenly occurred to him that a food store might not be a bad place to continue his search for tomatoes.

He approached a Jip-Mart employee whose nametag read, “My Name Is Joe,” and asked him about tomato soup.

“Yes sir, we’ve got all your soup-needs covered. Just check aisle 5,” said the Jip-Mart employee whose nametag read, “My Name Is Joe.”

Tom looked through the aisle. The sign above read, “Canned Goods.” To his dismay, there were only cans of miscellaneous soups.

“No tomatoes?” Tom whined.

He returned to the Jip-Mart employee whose nametag read, “My Name Is Joe.”

“There are no tomatoes. I need tomatoes.”

“I’m sorry, sir. Did you mean whole tomatoes?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, alright then. You need to look in aisle 12 for whole tomatoes,” said the Jip-Mart employee whose nametag read, “My Name Is Joe.”

Tom went to aisle 12 and found delicious-looking crimson tomatoes dripping with dew. “Tomatoes!”

He returned, once again, to the Jip-Mart employee whose nametag read, “My Name Is Joe,” to purchase the tomato.

“That’ll be a dollar…”

“I have a dollar,” said Tom.

“… And one penny, sir,” said the Jip-Mart employee whose nametag read, “My Name Is Joe.”

Tom set the tomato down and slumped his head. “I only have one dollar.”

“Alright, I won’t charge you that extra penny, sir.”

“Really? Thanks, Joe!”

“Joe? Oh no, my name’s Richard.”

O O O

Tom skipped merrily home. He was nearly there when a displaced 18-wheeler plowed him over. It was shiny. The tomato was smashed.

O O O

“Nurse, how’s our patient?”

“Mental activity is low, doctor.”

“How can this be, nurse? Has he been severely injured?”

“No, doctor. He’s just stupid.”

Tom fluttered his eyelids open and babbled something about tomatoes.

The doctor and the nurse looked at each other. Awkward silence ensued.

“Doctor, I believe he’s unstable.”

“What do we do with unstable patients, nurse?”

“Send them off, of course, doctor.”

They sat Tom in a sparkly new wheelchair and rolled him out of the hospital.

“Now how am I going to get tomatoes?” he asked himself.

O O O

As Tom pushed himself on down the sidewalk he saw a glamorous, and obviously filthy rich, woman walking toward him.

This woman wore a fluffy pink hat, a bright pink suit, a short pink skirt, uncomfortable pink high-heel bunny slippers, and walked a tiny pink poodle.

“I’ll bet she can help me get a tomato,” said Tom.

“Whoever are you talking to, my good man?” the woman questioned.

“Oh. Um. No one.”

“Yes, well, let’s keep it that way,” she said with a ‘humph’. Her pink poodle chirped at the strange tomato-seeking man in bunny slippers.

“Can you help me?”

“I’m not trained in psychiatry.”

“I need tomatoes,” said Tom.

The woman fluffed her hat up. “Well, I’m sorry. I cannot stop to help you!”

“I need money to get a tomato.”

The fancy woman was beginning to feel annoyed. “Oh good heavens, just take your money!” she picked a quarter out of her small pink handbag and tossed it to him.

He caught it with both hands and stared at it. It was shiny! “Thank you.”

O O O

Tom rolled his wheelchair merrily down the sidewalk once more. Suddenly he saw a bummer coming toward him. The scruffy man looked oddly familiar.

“Excuse me! Do you have a tomato?” Tom asked.

The beggar stroked his beard and said, “You got a quarter?”

Tom looked at the shiny quarter in his hand. “Yeah. I’ll trade you.” He held the coin up.

In the blink of an eye, the hustler snatched the quarter and made off with it. Tom was left with nothing in his possession but a wheelchair, puffy pink bunny slippers, and the toilet paper stuck to the left one.

O O O

He returned home, still tomato less, and fiddled with some more pocket lint. Or maybe it was the same pocket lint. But does that really matter?

He took another shot at looking in the fridge. He’d been gone all day, so there was a good chance that a tomato may have appeared in there.

But alas, there was none to be found. Tom sighed and closed his eyes.

BAM! Andrew (remember the room mate from the first page?) slammed the door open and carried the grocery bags to the kitchen.

“Woah, man! What happened to you, bro?” he said, looking at Tom’s wheelchair.

“Meh.”

“Woah. That’s harsh, dude. Hey, I know what’ll cheer you up!”

“The only thing that’ll cheer me up is tomato soup. I looked all over the place and couldn’t find any tomatoes to make tomato soup,” Tom spat.

Andrew held up two cans he’d just bought. “You know it comes in a can, right?”

FIN