the squishiness of ugly tomatoes, and vice versa

we are in the twilight of manual labor

and the work i do slicing tomatoes will dry up sooner or later.

but till it does I put on six gloves–

vinyl, cut-resistant mesh, vinyl–

and with my left three-gloved hand I pluck a well-washed tomato from a container,

place it stem-orificed down on the runway of the nonmotorized tomato slicer,

and with my elbow tucked in, in the manner of a boxer delivering a body blow to an opponent, ram the tomato through a parallel set of blades remindful of open venetian blinds,

while my right hand waits on the other side of the blades

to catch the freshly subdivided tomato.

that’s the plan, anyway. in a perfect world with ripe yet firm tomatoes and a slicer with new blades, it is a lovely process.

today was unlovely.

all tomatoes are not created equal. most in a case i was slicing were overripe. more than one of this batch also had skins cut-resistant enough so that the imposed pressure of blades-ramming caused a rupture, jamming the tomato in the blades and spraying juice and seeds.

one tomato had the temerity to spit in my eye.

halfway through my shift i changed aprons, the sprayscape looking like something done on canvas by one of the lesser abstract impressionists.

i finished my shift, drove home, and shed tomato-redolent clothing, but would not be surprised if my hair retained some of the plant-based fragrance, even though I wear a bouffant hair net on the job.

but it is honest work…declaims the Tomatoman.