“Do you know how hard it is to fork a grape tomato?” Orlando asked, bending towards his plate with a look of pure determination on his face.
“I think the term would be ‘spear,’ Orly, and yes. This is why you just pick them up with your fingers.” Elijah plucked a little red grape tomato from Orlando’s salad and popped it into his mouth. “Like so.” Elijah then made a very disgusted face, “I forgot I hate tomatoes. Except in sauce.” He held up his pizza and happily took a bite.
Orlando looked up at him, his face a mixture of annoyance and amusement. “Get your hobbit hands out of my salad, Wood.” He made a face at his plate. “It’s not elf-like to eat with your fingers.”
“It is with tomatoes,” Billy spoke up from across the table. “Those little buggers just ask for it.” He took a rather large bite from his hamburger, which was falling apart, and then wiped his mouth with his napkin in a very prissy manner.
“You could try to pick them up like you would if you’re using a spoon. You know, scoop ‘em out,” Dom suggested, making a scooping motion with his fork in mid-air. He then ate half his turkey sandwich in one bite.
Elijah shrugged and took a small bite from the tip of his piece of pizza; Orlando was still bent over his plate trying to spear a tomato, but all it did was roll around obstinately. “Bloody buggers,” Orlando mumbled, giving up to spear a cucumber. “You should be more like the cucumber. They spear rather nicely, and they’re also multi-useful.”
“Is multi-useful a word?” Elijah questioned, eating the rest of his piece, but leaving the crust on his plate; Dom noticed this and ate the crust himself, as if there was nothing weird about it, and there wasn’t, since they were always seen doing things like this. Pretty soon Elijah would, if applicable, eat the mushrooms Dom tossed aside, as he hated them with the ‘fire of a thousand suns…maybe more.’
“Does it matter?” Orlando countered, scowling at him.
“Tomatoes are multi-useful,” Billy piped up, throwing a fry into his mouth. “You can eat them as they are, or smash them into sauce for pizza, like Elijah is demonstrating, or spaghetti sauce.
“Yes, but cucumbers can be pickled,” Orlando said, bright eyed, as if this were the greatest invention since the wheel, or sliced bread.
“Into pickles,” Dom threw in, smiling. “Bill, can I have your pickle?”
Billy grabbed the pickle from his plate and looked at it, then at Dom, measuring his possibilities. “How about I split it with you, instead? I can’t bear to part with the entire thing.”
Dom nodded happily, waiting while Billy cut it into two even slices. “Why don’t you just ask the waitress for a whole jar?” Elijah savagely bit into another slice of pizza, which, as it happened, only had cheese on top, something the others jested him about.
“That is a brilliant idea, Lij. I was beginning to wonder why we had you around, but now I know.” Dom threw a cheeky grin onto his face and waved the waitress over. After looking at them all like they were insane (a strong possibility) she walked away stating she’d bring them a jar if she could find one.
There was silence for a few minutes, except for the ping every time Orlando’s fork hit the plate instead of the tomato, which he was still trying to convey into his mouth. Finally, after about eight pings when Dom was about to hit Orlando upside the head, he let out a loud, “AH HA!!!” and squirted tomato seeds all over the place, including Elijah’s face.
As he was wiping them off with a cloth napkin, and simultaneously giving everyone dirty looks (they were all laughing openly), the waitress came back with a jar of pickles, which Dom and Billy hungrily dove into them. Elijah, scowling, stood up from the table. “THAT is the trouble with damned tomatoes. Now I have to go wash my face.”
Once he was out of ear shot, the three of them burst into loud peals of laughter.