Slipping on a banana peel used to be an over-used sight gag.
And our problem here is the bananas being all approximately the same ripeness at the same time - we wish they were not the same, but different.
I think the banana growers and the grocery stores need help from the automotive industry: Limited-slip differential. 
I go by ‘is there a sticker left on the split-off bunch? If so, split away.’
Grocery stores around here seem to expect people to do the splitting–otherwise I don’t think they’d put several stickers on a bunch (which is what they do. The stickers, I believe, are intended to distinguish ‘regular-price bananas’ from ‘more-expensive ‘organic’ bananas’).
The bunch hangs from the “tree”, like an apple does. (Or actually, sort of like dates). Stem end up. This is hundreds of bananas, so there is a lot of weight.
A single banana is a “finger.”
Yip, local grocery store only ever has bananas of matching vintage available so I can’t select for ripeness. Not that bananas get a chance to spoil in my house, some days my three year old son is 5% banana by weight, I swear.
You get sent to the Group W bench along with the people who sample the fruit, the folks who have 20 things in the express lane and the idiots who wait until they are at the front of the line at the deli counter to start figuring out what they want.
And the people who wait until the cashier tells them the amount due before they get their wallet out? The Group W bench is too good for them.
Nope, not weird at all! I do it all the time (but then maybe I’m weird!!). I like bananas to be at the perfect stage of ripeness (for me). I have a banana every morning at work, so instead of trying to transport one from home every day and risking it getting all bruised up in my bag, I bring what I call a “bunch” to work every Monday. I get 5 bananas ranging from a perfect ready to eat all the way to a slightly green. Most of the time it works out perfectly. I hate green bananas (no flavor) and I hate overly ripe bananas (too mushy).
Sometimes it’s only green at the store, and I put them in a paper bag to concentrate the ethyline gas and ripen them quicker. That said, I think it’s a bit selfish to make your own bunch, leaving the store with a lot of bunches too small to sell. Besides, I’ve never see a bunch with varying levels of ripeness.
When I’m feeling nostalgic, I just pretend that my hands ARE bananas.
Yes, I just call it “buying bananas”. There is no requirement to buy complete bunches.
I don’t tape assorted singles into a Frankenstein bunch before bringing them to the register.
Having not read any of the replies, I’m chiming in to say that after 38 years in the produce business and over 25 punching the clock at the same produce business, picking and choosing individual bananas, taking two from this bunch, one from that bunch…is extraordinarily common.
Plenty of people make sure that they can have one today, one tomorrow etc. There are also ways that you, at home, can speed up or slow down/stop the ripening process if you need to.
Sounds like you bought yourself some plantains AKA cooking bananas, not dessert bananas.
How are the remaining bunches too small to sell? The fact that people are doing this is, itself, evidence that small bunches can and do sell.
Same experience here. The local groceries probably have 3/4 of their available bananas as bunches of 5 to 7 (never seems to get to 8 for some reason). The remaining bananas are either singles or in clusters of 2 or 3.
Bananas locally are rarely sold with even a hint of brown, so what you’ll generally see are a big load of banana bunches mostly all of one level of ripeness (‘a little green’ being common) and the loose bananas at roughly the same ripeness with some a little more ripe. What I try to do is get a bunch of five or six slightly green bananas, and then one or two “just shed the green yesterday” bananas.
One the brown spots start up, the bananas go south fast. And no, putting them in the fridge doesn’t help – they still get mushy and over-sweet & bitter (yeah … too sweet and bitter simultaneously. Not sure how else to explain it).
There’s nothing contradictory about being both bitter and sweet. It’s bitter and sour that are opposites.
Nope, just your bog-standard Grand Nain Cavendish.
Not only does it not help – refrigeration makes them go brown. I think there’s a column about it somewhere here…
I’m sure we agree that acidity and sweetness are independent properties.
But I’m not sure what you’re claiming about the definitions of the words bitter and sour. I think “sour” usually has the narrow meaning acidic. Whereas “bitter” seems to have a much wider range of meaning - it can mean unripe, not sweet, acrid, acidic or caustic, even though the last two are chemically opposites.
When people refer to the fundamental flavors as being sweet, sour, salty, and bitter, the last refers to sensors on the tongue which primarily detect bases. Yes, it can also mean any disagreeable flavor, but I think that usage just confuses matters.
Well, remember, there’s always money in the banana hand.
(I just wanted to let you know that someone did enjoy the references!)