Went down to a friend's place on a west-facing beach last night to watch the sun not exactly set but at least drop toward to horizon. Several other people there; a companionable evening talk. A wonderful ... what? A story? An explanation? Folk wisdom? Hard to know how to describe what I heard.
The background: for some reason, this past year, the border people decided that no tomatoes could come into Point Roberts (or, more specifically, into the U.S.). This kind of thing is usually not about terrorism but about agricultural worries from California. Harm could be coming to its tomato industry.
So my friend asked the border agent, when she noted to his disapproval that she had a tomato in her possession, if there was any way to acceptably bring the tomato across. And, she swears, he told her that the reason you can't bring tomatoes over the border is that there is some dangerous (to the crop) insect on tomatoes. Thus, if you slice the tomatoes before approaching the border, you can bring tomatoes across BECAUSE if you've sliced them, then the dreaded insect has doubtless jumped off in the process.
I just don't know what to say about that. But I'd be interested in running it by California's Agriculture head honcho.
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