Thursday, March 15, 2012

Going Bananas


Bananas cheese me off.

Like that little snark of a girl with the curl in the middle of her forehead, when bananas are good they are very, very good but when they are bad they are either green or they're black, hard as a rock or mushy enough to gag a maggot. Every once in a while, though, every once in a lonnnnnnnnnng while, I wind up with a perfect banana and It. Is. So. Choice.

So I keep buying the darn things, just in case the new banana is the Choice Banana but invariably I am disappointed. (This sounds like a metaphor for men and/or life, does it not?)

I bought the last bunch when they were green, because I had no choice. They were all green. Blargh. I sat them in the banana bowl and watched them like a hawk. Every day they were a slightly paler shade of green. Like fading phlegm. Then one day they were pale yellow with green edges. Then, like five seconds later, they were pale yellow with green edges and BROWN SPOTS. I grabbed one while the grabbing was good and peeled it before it could turn black. It looked fine but it was so firm that it wouldn't bend and my teeth wouldn't go through it. Seriously. It was like biting into a banana-flavoured brick.

This happened at work. I held up the offending banana with the bite marks for my colleagues to see and they were suitably appalled. For some reason the guys I work with shuddered ...

This story reminds me of a photo that was in one of our newspapers the other day. The picture featured a protester holding a cat. The cat, apparently, was named Meat Popsicle.

"What a weird name," I said to my co-workers. "Somebody named their cat Meat Popsicle."

They started laughing and saying how rude that name was. I was like, wha? What's so rude about that? I mean, it's stupid, right? But rude?

Then it hit me.

41 comments:

  1. I think our bananas skip the 'perfect' stage entirely.

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  2. You can never buy the perfect banana either. It's either a bunch of martian green bananas, or one that is already drawing fruit flies. There is nothing grosser than a mushy banana. Bleh! They're only good for old timey slapstick comedy.

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  3. We buy a very few bananas at a time..like three or four...and we buy them grass green and, as you say, watch them like a hawk. The second one is ready we grab it. We refer to a perfect banana as "a handsome" banana. When our daughter was little she would ask, "Do we have a handsome banana?"

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  4. You have to choose your moment well - he who hesitates is left with a spotty, squelchy mess!

    Although, in our house, we have more problems with the timing of the 'pear-pounce' - one minute they're rock-hard; blink - and they're a squidgy, rotting pulp!

    Funny, but I don't remember this almost-instant decaying of fruit in my youth? (must be all the chemicals they spray on things these days.....)

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    1. Actually, Sue, I never ate fruit in my youth. Chocolate bars and potato chips never go squidgy!

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  5. So, who was the first to ask, "Is that a meat popsicle in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?"

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  6. I just don't buy bananas. OK, will you do another post explaining why Meet popsicle is rude, because I'm not getting anything past cute. Maybe it will hit me after I hit publish, but I'm not counting on it.

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  7. We rarely get good bananas here. They're either tasteless or dry sponge. Even when they look at peak, they're as tasty as styrofoam. When some are marked down for going black I snap em up and freeze them as is for banana bread, though.

    Who's gonna tell Joanne?

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    1. AND OMG AUSTAN! I read your comment at work and actually SNORTED at the "Who's gonna tell Joanne?" TOO FUNNY!

      (I don't wanna tell her... you tell her...)

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  8. bananas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! its all bananas!""""

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  9. I don't know Joanne at all, so I can tell her...;)News comes best from strangers anyway...:)

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    1. Make sure you take her photo when you share the news... I would LOVE to see her face!

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  10. Here in south FL bananners go from green to brown in about 3 hours.

    ps: Do not worry, Joanne, I don't get it either.

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  11. Only you Cathy can made an amusing post out of something as mundane as a banana ^__^ Now believe it or not I have that dratted play school song going though my head - .•*¨*•♫♪ Banana's in pyjamas are coming down the stairs ♪♫•*¨*• Banana's in pyjamas are coming down in pairs ♪♫•*¨*• Bananas in pajamas are chasing teddy bears, 'cause on Tuesdays they all try to catch them unawares .•*¨*•♫♪♪♫•*¨*•. - right everyone sing along one two three....^__^

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  12. Oops made should read make - my keyboard has a mind of its own - that's my story ^__^

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    1. Mine doesn't have a mind of its own but it does have an impressive collection of crumbs and dust bunnies.

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  13. Hi Cath,
    Just a note to let you know that my mom is the absolute expert on the state of bananas, right here in Haliburton!
    If you ever need to know the 'perfect state' of all of the bananas shipped here and offered for sale, just let me know...
    cheers,
    Jamie

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    1. That's all well and good, Jamie, but by the time I drove to Haliburton to get your mom's bananas, they'd be in the squidgy stage. Blech!

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  14. Make that tell Joanne and Elephant's Child. Sorry, I don't get it either.

    And my perfect banana is on the green side, but it is still just so hard to get them while they are perfect. They seem to move from brick like to mush in minutes.

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    1. OK, ok, ok, I shall explain! (Blushing) What part of a male anatomy is shaped like a popsicle and is made of flesh (meat) that many (most) ((all?)) males think should be, um, licked (BLUSHING!!!) like a popsicle!!!
      (OMG I hope my mother and children aren't reading this!)

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    2. Ok, you totally said that better than I would have...well done, Cathy. ;)

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    3. ROTFLMAO......da da da da da da....can't touch that.

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    4. I see. Should have known I guess, but popsickle is a term we don't use. And yes, (most) (all) men envy the flexibility of cats and dogs.
      Thank you - and sorry to make you blush.

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    5. OH! Now I get it, you're talking about his lipstick.

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  15. I try to wait them out but by the time they looked suitably ripe the cravings gine. i was in west africa (nigeria) recently and I swear they have the best bananas ever. When they are perfectly ripe (which you find often) they taste like desert and are as long as ones forearm.

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    1. I saw The Descendants last night and wanted to move to Hawaii ... now I'm thinking I'll move to Nigeria for dessert-bananas.... yum. Wendy! Lucky you with the travelling!!!!

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  16. I remember when I told a friend that my aunt was turning 90, and she said that my aunt probably shouldn't buy any green bananas! I like yours much better, but I thought this distraction might be useful. Julie

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  17. You had to explain it! That's even funnier than the post, and that took some doing!!!!

    We seem to have pretty good luck with bananas on Planet Georgia. Maybe because they don't have to travel so far, and the humidity is bad but not like Florida's. They'll be good for 2-3 days, then "well, if I have to" for another day. But Mason & his 2nd cousin Skylar usually keep them from getting to the latter stage. Mason would live on fruit & dairy, with the occasional meatball, if we let him.

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