So what’s a “Tomato” and are you one?
“Tomato” is a retro term from the “Mad Men” era used to describe a woman who exudes confidence and knows her way around. Tomatoes are not defined by age or labels like boomers – but are all about living and enjoying life fully, at every age and every stage. Are you a tomato?
You know you’re a tomato if…you put baby oil on your face and sat on the campus lawn with one those of aluminum reflectors under your chin, face pointed to the noon day sun with “I wish they all could be California girls” blaring from your transistor radio. And if someone had mentioned SPF to you back then, you would have thought it was a new kind of acid.
You know you’re a tomato if…You have two kinds of shopping friends. The enablers who say, “oh you have to buy it”. We call those best friends. And then the ones who say, “you don’t need that”. Those are called husbands.
You know you’re a tomato if…you buy sexy lingerie because it makes YOU feel good. And hey, if Hugh Grant ever ravishes us on the spur on the moment, damned if we’ll have a humiliating Bridget Jones granny underwear moment.
And you’re definitely a tomato if…the first time you wore a garter belt and stockings was because they hadn’t invented panty hose.
You know you’re a tomato if… Con Edison sends you a letter once a quarter suggesting there might be a problem with your gas meter since there’s been no reported usage of the gas hooked up to your stove.
You know you’re a tomato if…. you’ve ever gone on vacation and had to buy an extra suitcase to carry home all the things you’ve bought. Make that two if you’re traveling to Italy — you want to separate those Gucci’s and Prada’s.
You know you’re a tomato if…you have dozens of cookbooks, drawers full of recipes you’ve cut out from everywhere, and eat out most of the time.
You know you’re a tomato if…you secretly buy the supermarket celebrity tabloids, but “claim” you only read them while standing in line. We confess. We can’t help ourselves for wanting to know the latest Brad, Angelina saga. And we know we should be better people, but it’s kind of good to know that even Jen can get dumped and that Jerry Hall has cellulite and Goldie Hawn’s knees are sagging.
You know you’re a tomato if…you grew up with Dick Clark and American Band Stand and have spent more New Year’s Eve’s with Dick then any other man in your life.
You know you’re a tomato if…you remember when people use to decorate their Christmas trees with “ice sickle” tinsel, those little tin foil type strips (for those of you younger tomatoes who are saying tinsel??) that gave the trees that magical finishing touch. At least the ones that were painstakingly placed on the tree one by one as opposed to the ones that looked as if they had been hurled on. Do they even make tinsel anymore?
You know you’re a tomato if…we say, “power shopping” and you say when?
You know you’re a tomato if… you’re thankful on Thanksgiving day if no one brings one of those sweet potato casseroles topped with marshmallows or a jello mold filled with fruit and sprinkled with coconut that you feel compelled to eat and say how yummy it is so you don’t hurt Aunt Matilda’s feelings.
You know you’re a tomato if…you grew up in an era when kids grabbed their ice skates in the winter time, said so long to Mom, and headed to the nearest frozen pond or lake and stayed there ‘til the sun went down. And nobody worried.
You know you’re a tomato if…you remember when retailers actually let you enjoy Halloween and Thanksgiving before they started bombarding you with Deck the Halls and ‘tis the Season. At the rate some retailers are going, we’ll be singing Santa Claus is Coming to Town in July!
You know you’re a tomato if…. you thank your lucky stars every day for your best friends. The ones whose sentences you can finish. The ones you can call day or night. The ones you can go weeks without seeing but instantly reconnect. And the ones you laugh and cry with.
You know you’re a tomato if…your introduction to “fine wine” was a rosé called Mateus usually consumed in large quantities while sitting on pillows on a floor, candles flickering in the background and pondering your future over Tarot cards.
You know you’re a tomato if…You walk just about everywhere in New York City, yet the second you get to suburbia you take your car to drive a mile to buy a quart of milk.
You know you’re a tomato if…your early experiences with seafood were “fish sticks” in the school cafeteria usually served with canned peas and carrots. It’s amazing any of us ever tried fish or ate a vegetable after that.
You know you’re a tomato if…you remember independently owned local “drug stores” usually named after the pharmacist who could knowledgeably tell you everything from how to get rid of warts to how to sooth a colicky baby. And you’re really a tomato if you remember drug stores with sodafountains!
You know you’re a tomato if…you remember a time when cabbies talked your ear off, knew every landmark in New York City, and didn’t need you to give them directions.
You know you’re a tomato if…you remember “practice drills” hiding under your desk in school from the Russian “bombs”; neighbors who actually built bomb shelters in their back yards; and Khrushchev banging his shoe on the table at the U.N.
You’re a tomato if…you’ve ever been lured into buying skin care products with claims like, “non-toxic nueropeptides helps skin rejuvenation “; “works at the cellular level”; “fights daily free radical damage”; “contains age defying GABA”, even though you have no idea what the hell they mean, but it sounds so scientific it must work.
You know you’re a tomato if…you used to actually go to sleep with jumbo rollers the size of soda cans in your hair and you once owned one of those hair dryers that blew hot hair from a hood.
You’re a tomato if…you know that chocolate covered raisins, cherries, orange slices and strawberries all count as fruit, so you can eat as many as you want.
You know you’re a tomato if…you remember drive-in movies and the first James Bond movie (hint, it had to do with gold). And speaking of seduction, no one does it better than Bond, James Bond. And no one does Bond better than Sean Connery.
You know you’re a tomato if…your first TV was black and white. You remember rabbit ears and the Mickey Mouse Club (when it featured Annette Funnicello).
You’re a tomato if…You sometimes long for the “good old days ” when your skin care routine consisted of Noxzema, Ponds Cold Cream, and Clearasil.
You know you’re a tomato if…you’ve ever lotioned up so much that you’ve fallen out of bed; you’ve hidden skin care products so your husband won’t find out about your little addiction; you’ve bought infomercial products that promised the “instant face lift”.
You know you’re a tomato if…you ever wore penny loafers with plaid pleated skirts; white go-go boots with mini-skirts; earth shoes with your peasant skirt; platform shoes with hot pants; and suffered through the excruciating pain of wearing stilettos with your little black dress for some jerk whose name you can’t remember.
And like all good tomatoes, you know there is no such thing as too many shoes, a concept men will never understand. The Three Tomatoes have stored shoes everywhere including spare bathroom tubs and even ovens (might as well use them for something!)
You know you’re a tomato if…you “felt the burn” with Jane Fonda exercise videos. (Who knew her real secret to weight loss was throwing up?) You smoked cigarettes to stay thin. You gained weight on Atkins.
You know you’re a tomato if… Margaret Keane’s sad big-eyed waif prints ever hung on your walls and you remember that it was Andy Wharhol who said ” In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.”
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You know you’re a New York tomato if...
You use the term “oy vey” to express a vexing moment while in the presence of your Southern Baptist relatives and they respond “what did y’all just say?”
You know what “mensch” means, and that falafel and uni refer to food, and you know that most words ending in “er” should be pronounced with a long “a’, like in Motha and Fatha.
You’ve been to Brooklyn, “da” Bronx, and Queens (on the way to the airport does not count.) And you’ve been on the Staten Island Ferry.
You have a 10 minute conversation with your newspaper stand guy on the stimulus package and his plan actually makes sense.
You and your cabbie discuss the pros and cons of closing parts of Broadway while Verdi is playing on his CD.
You say yes, yes, yes to your manicurist even though you have no idea what she just said, because you’re so happy you can get a $10 manicure in NYC. (See the hysterical video we’ve posted at 3T.TV.)
You can actually find the South East corner of most streets in NYC.
You live in a great little neighborhood that consists of 3 or 4 blocks and has your favorite Chinese, Italian, Turkish, Indian and Japanese restaurants, dry cleaner, deli, bagel place, mani/pedi salon, and local pub.
You bitch and moan so often at times about living here, that you sometimes forget there’s actually no place else you’d rather be.
