chin slapping

I’m very particular with foods I eat, not so much for the taste, but more so for the convenience at which to eat them. I like the flavour of bananas, the banana billabongs have long been my favourite ice confectionary, but I don’t like eating bananas, if only for the reason that I have to break them up while eating them, as eating them like a monkey would makes me feel uncomfortable, something that shape shouldn’t be entering my mouth like that.

Another food that gets my gripe is tomatoes. I don’t mind the flavour or tomatoes, im a fan of tomato soup, its been a comforter of mine for years, cold winter nights with toast wrapped under the comfort of a sleeping bag, on the couch, in front of a tv, so its not a disclike to the fruit which has caused me the concern, it’s the position it puts me in, and how that makes me feel.
In a salad, when nicely tossed, they are the perfect fruit, it’s more in a burger/sandwich/kebab (BSK) situation that concerns me.

The tomato, on most occasions has quite a tough exterior, the skin sometimes hard to break through, very rarely can you rely on a butter knife to give you a consistent cut through the tomato skin, it just gives it an indentation, which then turns into a rip, which then turns into the worst sandwich of all time, due to the bad cut of the tomato. But that’s not my problem; I don’t buy tomatoes to cut up myself.

My problem with the tomato is this: With the skin being so hard it takes quite a bite to cut through the skin, but even a tough bite isn’t a guarantee that you have taken only what you want. When you don’t fully break through the skin on your bite, as you slowly depart from the kiss of your food, the tough skin that the tomato brings keeps the portion of the tomato in your mouth, and the portion in your sandwich inseparable, the result of this being a tomato hitting your chin.

The hitting of the chin is the main issue, but associated with that issue is the inside of the tomato, with its gooey texture and abundance of seeds ends up on your chin, now, as mentioned earlier the reason for my banana dislike is due to the uncomfortable situation it puts me in, a wet gooey substance full of ‘seeds’ hitting my chin puts me in that same situation. I’m not homophobic, but I’m also far from looking forward to something, be it in this case a tomato, bouncing against my chin, leaving a trail of goo and seeds.

As I don’t have control over the slice or quality of the tomato I consistently abstain from ordering foods where tomato is a staple. Or if the option of tomato is there, I asked for said offender to be removed, on most occasions a wry frown appears on the hosts face, their discomfort of having to remove the tomato is nothing compared to the fear of the chin slap, and in turn the discomfort I feel as tomato juice runs down my chin in such an unsensual way.