The internet is a pretty mixed blessing, overall. On one hand, we now have finger/toe-tip access to the vast majority of human knowledge, and on the other we now all know way, way too much about everyone, everywhere, always. And yet sometimes what we learn about people we don’t know can prove to be so gloriously, bafflingly fascinating that it somehow is all worth it. Like this question that popped up on Reddit’s r/cars forum, where a someone is worried about a divorce if they dehydrate tomatoes in their husband’s car. With a parrot.
I don’t mean the parrot will be dehydrating tomatoes — I don’t think they can do that and the woman at PetCo just got all weird on me when I kept asking about it and eventually hit me with a big rawhide bone, which left a huge purple welt on my face.
No, the tomato dehydrating will be done with a dehydrator. In a truck. You better just read this for yourself:
Will my husband divorce me if I dehydrate tomatoes in his F-150 truck?
I impulse bought a $US3 ($4) case of tomatoes to dehydrate. Also, my daughter who lives 6 hours away is about to give birth any day and wants us to drop everything and drive there when she goes into labour, to watch her preschooler while she’s in the hospital.
If I start the tomatoes and we get the call before they’re done, in theory I could move the dehydrator to the truck and run it on an inverter while we drive. Would hotboxing the concentrated tomato fumes kill us or the parrot who has to ride with us? Would the smell stay in his nice truck forever, in the upholstery and the air system, leaving me with beautiful dried tomatoes but a failed marriage?
There’s no way to run it in the bed of the truck, it would have to be inside where the people and birds sit.
I feel like after reading this all of us have become that Nathan Fillion GIF where he opens and closes his mouth, the react-to-this-bonkers-shit neurons firing before the what-the-hell-is-going-on-here neurons have a chance to catch up.
OK, let’s try and break down what’s going on here:
• Our humble OP, who goes by Ductoid, bought a three-dollar case of tomatoes on “impulse.” She wants to dehydrate them. Let’s keep in mind that the amount of capital at stake here is three one-dollar bills, or possibly a dozen quarters.
• Her daughter is having a baby soon. Mazel tov! Though, honestly, Ductoid seems to be a bit put out by the idea of having to drive six hours as a result, which I sense from the phrasing “wants us to drop everything and drive there.”
• In this case, “drop everything” seems to be referring to the act of dehydrating tomatoes, which Ductoid doesn’t seem willing to drop.
• The tentative plan is to bring the dehydrator in the truck as they make the trip, running it off an inverter, but Ductoid is concerned that her husband’s nice F-150 will end up smelling like tomatoes.
• There’s a parrot involved.
• She doesn’t feel it’s possible to run the dehydrator in the bed, as the 12V outlet for the inverter is in the cab “where the people and birds sit.”
Now, as you can guess, everyone has a lot of questions here. My first thought is why not just use an extension cord from the inverter to the dehydrator, safely bungee-corded down in the bed?
Commenters have, of course, arrived at this option:
Our own Erin Marquis also suggested a cheap, simple outlet timer that the dehydrator could be plugged into so it could stay at home and not, I guess, over-dehydrate the tomatoes?
Again, the commenters are no dummies:
I just hope, if she goes this route, she goes to Home Depot and asks one of the orange aprons there something like
“Hi. My daughter is pregnant and I don’t want to dehydrate tomatoes in my husband’s truck, so…I think you see where I’m going here. Where are your outlet timers? Oh, does it matter if I have a parrot?”
The addition of the parrot really threw me for a loop here, because that alone, flapping around in the cab of a truck you like for six hours you’d think would be enough to cause marital worries. I mean, if her husband is cool with a parrot in the cab, some eu de tomato could hardly be a big deal, right?
A lot of commenters seem to have come to a similar conclusion, and suggest a case of beer would solve this, or maybe just leaning in and smoking some meat in the cab as well.
I think my favourite comment, though, is this one, because it really puts this all into perspective:
Exactly. The whole I-gotta-dry-out-these-tomatoes-but-need-to-drive-to-my-grandkid’s-birth-with-my-parrot-and-not-piss-off-my-spouse-by-stinking-up-his-truck seems like the fundamental problem of the modern human condition; solve this, and you’ve pretty much solved everything.
There’s so many fantastic comment threads going on here. Like this:
If you keep scrolling, you’ll get more exciting details about the parrot, too:
I can’t recommend enough just going to the link and really just drinking in all the magic here. The parrots, the tomatoes, the joy of birth, the difficulties of marriage, the deliciousness of a dehydrated tomato, everything, everything, everything.
I have a feeling this will all end up just fine, with dehydrated tomatoes and a loving marriage and a new baby. I wish everyone involved the best.
Even the damn parrot.