I Say Tomato

“… and a couple of slices of spinach and mushroom quiche, please,” I said to the nice man at the deli counter. My friend Sandi was coming to lunch and she likes a quiche.

Photo by Avin CP on Unsplash

“You got it,” said the nice man, chose and boxed up two slices of spinach and mushroom quiche, and handed them to me.

“And maybe some roasted vegetables,” I said, because I like a roast vegetable.

“Great choice,” he said – he really was a very nice man – packaged up some vegetables and handed them to me too.

“And I think a small container of bocconcini salad,” I concluded, having, I thought, selected a suitable midday repast for two.

“One small container,” he said, and began to fill one.

“Is this enough?” he asked when it was nearly full.

I squinted at the tub’s contents: it looked delicious but just a little heavy on the mozzarella, and since there was already cheese in the quiche, I thought that a touch more vitamin C would not go amiss.

“Maybe you could add a couple more tomatoes on top?” I asked. I said tomaytoes, not tomahtoes, because that’s how I say it these days, because that’s how people do say it in America, which these days is where I live.

The man paused with his spoon suspended in the air, and smiled.

“Say it again,” he said.

The store was admittedly busy: obligingly, I adjusted my decibel level.

“A couple more tomaytoes please,” I repeated.

He grinned cheerfully, and winked at me.

“I’m not going to give them to you,” he said, “until you ask me one more time.”

Now, this was unexpected: he was certainly a very nice man, but then, as I reminded myself, the nicest of people are as capable of hosting bats in their belfry as are the less agreeable ones.

“Excuse me?” I said, politely, after a moment.

He smiled again and began to go what in a less dignified individual might have been described as ever so slightly soppy.

“I just want to hear it the way you say it,” he said. “It’s so darned cute!”

I had forgotten about the rest of my accent; but at last the penny, large, copper, and gleamingly engraved with the old Queen’s head, dropped.

“Oh,” I said. And, ever willing to take direction, “OK. In that case, may I please have some more tomahtoes?”

He added them in and beamed as he handed me my salad.

“You just made my day,” he said. “Thank you very much.”

“You’re welcome,” I said. And, because he was a particularly nice man and we were coming up to Thanksgiving after all, “Tomahtoes. Bassil. Orry-gah-no.”

He mopped his brow as his knees buckled gently beneath him.

“Promise me you’ll come back soon,” he said, and we parted with good will and good cheer.

The notable part about this exchange was that I had kicked it off by quite specifically requesting, not tomahtoes at all, but tomaytoes.