There seems to be a lot discussion about bananas, as of late. In the BBQ Pit, there is a thread discussing bananas and evolution. Over here in the real world, my roommate is threatening me with arrest if I do not remove this banana at once and incinerate it. Preferably in one of the biohazard incinerators here on campus.
Okay, not really. I just needed an introduction.
But the BBQ Pit thread is real.
Anyway, I’ve been thinking about bananas, and thinking back to times when bananas were significant in my life. Bananas have potassium. Did you know that? I learned that many years ago, when I was perhaps in fourth grade. Mom wanted me to do the dishes, but I was in a bad mood. I had a headache. I did NOT want to do the dishes.
I told her this.
Unfortunately, I still found myself standing on a bucket in front of the sink, looking down in horror at the slimy terrors that awaited me there. The dishes!? Didn’t I deserve a childhood!? Didn’t I deserve to have some fun??
I’ll show her! I thought. And so, instead of doing the dishes, I ate a banana.
I intended at that point to sulk around, but my mom came back, and informed me that I would be much unhappier if the dishes went unfinished. Man, that was SCARY. I did dishes. But, goshdarnit, I didn’t have to like it!
Well, that backfired, because just minutes into the horrid, disgusting task of digging old fishpans out from under piles of slimy noodles, vegetables, and tepid water, I found myself cheering up! It just didn’t seem right, somehow.
Naturally, I resisted at first.
It was no use. I just kept working and working, and getting happier and happier, and by the end, I was all but whistling, dangit!
Stupid banana.
But that’s not the story I was thinking of. To hear that one, we must dig farther back, into the mists of time - to a time when I was five years old. Five years old, and naively unaware of the mystery - of the power! - of the banana.
I was watching Sesame Street. At least, I’m pretty sure it was Sesame Street - it could have been something else. But this was the 80’s, and Sesame Street ruled supreme over all other children’s programs. And my mom didn’t really want me watching much TV anyway, and we didn’t get the Disney Channel anymore. So it was Sesame Street.
It cut to a segment with just a single character. I don’t think it was one of the named characters from the show. If it was, it was Gordon (I think Gordon was a black gentleman with a beard?), but I think it was some random guy. On just a red floor and background. With a beard. Wearing a v-neck sweater vest and loafers. He just looked easy, and kind. A guy you could talk to. The kind of guy that would listen.
He started talking.
The most amazing things came out of his mouth! Such soft, kind words! Such wisdom! He seemed to know of nothing else to give but thoughtful words and good advice. I was rapt - here was a man to listen to! I must remember his words!
Of course, today I remember none of it - indeed, I did not even then remember most of it, for the last thing he was so powerful, so clear, so TRUE (so frickin’ weird) that it has been seared into my brain forever, obliterating for eternity the rest of his advice.
“Put a banana in your shoe,” he said kindly, and then he actually slipped off one of his loafers, tucked a banana into it, put it back on and walked away. End segment.
I was awestruck. Here was a man who knew the secret of life! Here was a man who had it all figured out! The Great Mystery was revealed! And so of course, I had to try it, too.
First, I had to find a shoe. I needed a loafer, or something like it. Well, I didn’t have any loafers, but I DID have some bedroom slippers. None of those stuffed animal slippers neither, but real bedroom slippers. Or maybe they were some moccasins of my sister’s. I’m not quite sure.
Next, a banana. Simple visual analysis told me that was way, way too long to fit in there unmodified. Okaaaaay. Gotta do something about that. So I opened up the knife drawer, found a knife, and sliced it in half. Problem solved!
I had come to the critical juncture. The sticking place. The final crossroads. I took my half of banana, and slipped it into the slipper. Or my sister’s moccasin. Or whatever. I inspected it carefully. Hmmm. Didn’t seem to be much more room in there for my foot. I had come too far to be deterred by such trivial matters. I took the final step. I slipped my toes into the shoe, whatever it was (gosh, that IS a tight fit…), and… stepped.
I had done it! It was complete! It was marvelous! It was sublime! It was…
Kind of cold. And squishy. And a little gross, too. And then my mom found me.
After I had finished cleaning banana out of my toes, I spent the next little while contemplating the incident on top of my cars & trucks comforter, staring at the walls of bedroom. I concluded that, honestly, the whole experience had been rather overrated. Did I do something wrong? Was the banana too big? Was I just not noble enough or mature enough to appreciate the experience? I certainly never doubted the Sesame Street man.
Being five or six years old, the matter of course ceased to concern me before very much longer, but now I look back and wonder how it might have affected my later encounters with bananas. Do I appreciate them more? Or less? Do they evoke some kind of subconscious disgust at the memory of banana squishing between my toes? Is this why I don’t eat them all that often, despite rather liking them?
To this day, I still think that that guy had kind of a point, but I wonder if I misinterpreted it. Maybe it wasn’t about the physical feeling of a banana in your shoe - maybe it’s just about doing something a little different, a little wacky, and a little weird. Maybe he was saying, look - just because I’m wearing a natty sweater-vest and nice loafers and a well-groomed beard doesn’t mean I can’t be an individual! I don’t have to be an automaton, an alienated cog in the great machine of my life. I am in control of my own destiny, and I will slip a banana into my shoe because, goshdarnit, I CAN!
I think about Sesame Street and my mom (who I love very much, thanks) and the red rug in my bedroom and my cars & trucks comforter and now about college and classes and women and my clothes and bicycles and the apartment I want to rent next summer and what am I’m going to do with my life. And I think of the cold, squishy, kinda gross and totally weird feeling of banana squooshing between my toes, and the more I think about all of it, the more I think that, you know, that guy was right.
Put a banana in your shoe.
