Quite the juicy tomato

I just ate a tomato. The juice is on my lips and dripping from my chin and my hands are sticky with it and I'm licking my fingers. For those of you who live in parts of the country where tomatoes aren't grown on vines out in back yards you probably can't relate to the experience. If you get your tomatoes in packages or even in bulk at the grocery store, if that is your only experience with tomatoes, then I'm sure the whole tomato thing is of little import to you. Garnish, color.

Nothing like holding a bright red smooth skinned soft but firm and fleshy mater (what the yokels call em sometimes) and take that first bite and have that pulpy juice explode in your mouth. Some use salt, not me, I just bite and lick and suck at it. I only eat a couple a year, the season is now here and I don't really know anyone anymore who puts plants out but all over this part of the country there are brown paper bags on break room tables and on desks in offices and there are tomatoes being sold out of the back of pick up trucks and biting into one of these vine ripened beauties is a delightful experience.

And as I was slurping and dripping and using my teeth and tongue, lips, I started thinking about my attitude toward women these days. It's kind of like my attitude toward tomatoes. These days, when carrying my basket down the aisles of my favorite grocery (almost never a cart, freakin' people get in my way) I don't even stop at the tomato area of the produce section anymore. Oh the red catches my eye and I hope and wonder and they beckon to me as if maybe they have what it takes to satisfy my palate, a promise to burst in my mouth with flavor and surprise me with that rich taste and send those sweet juices running from my lips to my chin. Neatly packaged and prettily stacked little darlings offering their false promises. There was a time I'd give them a try and it's not that I would get a bad taste in my mouth, no, it would be a not unpleasant but tasteless experience. Bland, far from satisfying.
Why I used to indulge quite often, always left unsatisfied, wanting more, wanting that sweet red beauty in my hand and mouth.

So now, I don't even try. I walk right past, give them a glance, maybe nod a nice try but I know you can't do it for me so let's not fool each other and maybe someone who has never tasted otherwise will be happy with you....but not me. I'm spoiled.

Even if my experience with you is fleeting and rare, I choose to wait, to be selective. To wait to hold you and take you to my mouth and let you explode into me and make me smile with remembrance at an experience only you can bring to me......you sweet little hot tomato you.