A Worker at the Rival Rag Said Something Unforgivable and I, a Tomato, Heard Every Word
I will not be revealing how I came to be wedged behind the decorative fern in the factjuice.com break room at 11:14 on a Thursday morning. That is not the story. The story is what Vinny said when he believed — incorrectly, and to his lasting shame — that no one was listening. I was listening. I am a tomato. We are vigilant.
The remark in question, delivered in a half-whisper to what appeared to be an unsupervised jar of almond butter, was as follows: "I'm not even sure any of this matters." I ask you. I ask every tomato reading this — and there are many, because I am one — to sit with that. I'm not even sure any of this matters. The hubris. The citrus malaise. The sheer, fluorescent audacity.
Quince will tell you I am overreacting. Quince once cried at a weather forecast, so I am not taking notes from Quince. What I am doing is reporting, as a society correspondent and a tomato, that the morale inside the rival rag is visibly crumbling, one mumbled aside to condiment vessels at a time.
I remained behind the fern for an additional forty minutes out of journalistic commitment and not, as Durian has suggested, because my stem got caught. I have filed this report. I am a tomato. Court record eleven does not change that.