Secrets of the Banana
Remember, children, I blogged it first. ‘Know how I know? Because monkeys don’t have blogs.
Yet.
So I’m talking to my buddy Matt this evening, and he has a pleasant new-home-owner/sierra-nevada buzz going on, and we’ve been tossing around thoughts on virtual Windows environments and Obama for President and proper gin::tonic ratios when he instructs me, quite firmly, to go get a banana.
Now, our conversations have from time to time touched on quite a wealth of diverse topics including, but by no means limited to, home repair, outdoor recreation, familial interpersonal relationships, Volkswagens, and my ass, but never have I been told in such clear tones to find and, more importantly, lay hands to, a piece of produce, domestic, imported or otherwise. However, I’m nothing if not game, so I produce the banana and also my camera, because I have a feeling that if I have been commanded to pick up a banana it could only be for the highest, purest and most worthy intentions. In that noble faith I was not mistaken.
My only challenge is to do sufficient justice to the retelling of …
THE SECRETS OF THE BANANA.
Well, just the one secret. So that would be THE SECRET, singular. The Secret of the Banana. Starring Harrison Ford! Don’t miss the next exciting episode!
Right. So. Join me on this journey, won’t you? As we uncover the age-old mystery of the Banana? I promise you the results will be so life-changing you won’t be disappointed.
First, since this is a voyage of the mind, and THEN a voyage of the banana, I want you to close your eyes. Now, open them and read the next sentence and then close them again. Picture a banana. Now — pssst! Keep reading, OK? Maybe just close your eyes like after a paragraph. Otherwise this train is just going to kind of stall at the station, or whatever the methaphor — I mean, ha, metaphor — is. Methaphor. Sounds like an antibacterial cleanser.
OK! So. Picture a banana. Imagine you are going to eat this banana. What do you do? You go to the top of the banana, right? The stemmy part. And you yank on it and rip at it and try to cause the peel of the banana to break away from the stemmy bit and also from the meat of the banana itself. Guess what? Even in your mind’s eye it’s not working! Because it’s not separating and then you have to kind of dig your thumbnail in there and the top of the banana gets all smushy and you root around in the silverwear drawer to get something a little sharper than a butter knife and a little less sharp than a butcher knife — maybe a nice piece of Chef Tony craftsmanship, like this here steak knife — and you slice the end off and THEN you unpeel the banana.
Well, my friends, this is madness. You’re thinking, “There’s got to be a better way!”
There is!
Very handy for my story, that there’s a better way and that it’s a secret to you until the next paragraph.
Here’s the secret. And I have no qualms telling you that I did not invent the secret. And Matt did not invent the secret. And the four-year-old girl from whom he heard the secret did not invent the secret, either (although, for posterity’s sake, let it be known that credit for this brilliant tale goes 50 percent to Matt for the telling and 50 percent to the four-year-old girl who shared the secret in the first place. Just because, you know, people keep count on this sort of thing).
(All right, so you had to wait an extra paragraph for the secret. I’m not sorry.)
THE SECRET IS … (Owen is doing a very enthusiastic drumroll for your benefit, please clap at the end, it builds his self-esteem) … Open the banana from the bottom.
No shit. Know why? Because, and I quote, verbatim-like, only third-hand: “That’s the way the monkeys do it.” And goddamn it, if it’s good enough for the monkeys, for Darwin’s sake, it’s good enough for me!
Also, please try this at home. Just pop off the bottom knubby part of the banana and witness the brilliant rays of light which will signify that you, out of millions or even billions of 21st century people, have figured out what the monkeys knew all along: the most efficient way to open and peel a banana.
Thank you.
If you would like a transcript of this episode of SECRETS OF THE BANANA, you could probably just print this page from your browser, and then fold it up in quarters, and slip it into an envelope, and stick it on top of the microwave in your kitchen, near the bananas.
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12 Responses to “Secrets of the Banana”
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Ahhhh the secrets I could tell about bananas if I didn’t have some not so nice people reading my blog. Oh I know, I’ll tell those secrets in person at Blogher. I might have to have a drink in order to do it, but that would be new and unusual and sort of fun. Maybe.
I don’t like peeling the banana from the WRONG end. I like working a little for the joy that is the banana. Too easy, bah, no good. Make me work and ummm I really like it if you make me work.
Ordinarly I do not care for bananas. Food that puts pressure on you to eat it fast annoys me (except for ice cream because ice cream? it is good.) but I am now really looking forward to my next banana so that I can try out this wonder. Thank you for sharing!
heh. reminds me of this.
Gosh. You’re a bigger ham than I am. I never knew…
[quote comment=”3196”]Gosh. You’re a bigger ham than I am. I never knew…[/quote]
why do you think I blog?
brandon, love the cartoon.
Oh my lordy, I had no idea. Why on earth wouldn’t I just try the bottom end one day? Just try it? Gah.
[…] Supafine knows all. http://supamb.com/supafine/2006/05/03/secrets-of-the-banana/ […]
Banana conundrum…top or bottom?
I always wanted to know what was the right way, the hip way, the coolest of the cool ways to eat that sucker.
“I was humiliated in the 7th grade for even attempting to eat a banana in the cafeteria
Maybe if I’d known then what I know now…I could have become homecoming queen or a cheerleader or at least not have had banana peels thrown at me as I walked by.
Do what the monkeys do will be my new mantra!
(loved this post…you have such a unique style…you draw your readers into your writing and we feel part of your post) Brava
@melissa: see, that’s the thing! NOBODY thinks to do it that way! and yet, the monkeys … the monkeys. Do it like they do on the Discovery Channel, that’s what I say. Get back to our primate roots and open bananas from the bottom.
@marybishop: thank you for the compliment. I hope that, in the future, your newfound banana knowledge will catapult you to the very heights of popularity and coolness.
Ok, just to be a killjoy - the “top” of the banana is actually the bottom (here’s a picture of them growing: http://www.banana.com/farming).
The long stem that most use to peel it is actually the bottom of the fruit, and the bananas grow UP from there. So the “bottom” where the monkeys peel it from… is actually the top.
I know, I apologize for being one of those geeks who yelled “ooh!! ooh!! ooh!!” in class when we were all kids. But I couldn’t resist.
All right…now I can’t wait until Baby A gets up from her nap so I can impress her at snacktime!
I really dislike bananas (I know…I’ve tried and tried them), so the less time I can spend futzing with them, the better. And you know how the banana top gets all mushy and liquefied when the stem doesn’t work? Uuuuughhh. If I never see that again, I’ll be very happy.
- L
Hey Supa! Loved this post. Just thought I’d tell you, I added you to my bloglines after Blogher, but for some reason your blog has never shown up as updated, so that’s why I’ve missed all this. I’ll be back . .