The World’s
Not Gone Completely Bananas
by Eric Green
With so much
danger and uncertainty in the world, including
from Covid-19 and its complications, I’ll
take anything that allows my life to approximate
pre-Covid days--halfway normal, less stressed,
and realistically hopeful.
So maybe it was fate when taking my usual path
through the underground passageway on my way to
the local bank, I bumped into a neighbor in my
apartment building, Nancy, who informed me that
she had just picked up a free banana from two
ladies manning a stand down the street from where
we live. I had to quiz Nancy twice--free banana?
I stammered--seeing the yellow-colored object in
her hand.
At that moment, with the reverberating echo in my
brain of criminals running loose everywhere from
watching too many violent crime shows, I figured
it might be wiser not to enter the bank with a
banana in my hand, as the bank teller might
mistake it for a pistol or some explosive device.
With suspicion lurking all around, you better not
take any chances of appearing strange holding a
banana while doing a financial transaction, which
could lead to a swat team telling you to “drop
it” before frog-marching you into the paddy
wagon.
In the interest of avoiding a rap sheet, I put
off going for the free banana until early the
following morning. I rushed down the street and
there it was, a cart full of bananas with two
smiling ladies welcoming me to please take one
and assuring me it was free. I kept waiting to
hear the catch, that maybe these ladies were in a
cult and bananas were part of brainwashing to
have you follow their Svengali. But all the
ladies said was “have a good day.”
It was a repeat performance the next morning at
the banana stand. No Svengalis, no cult disciples,
only this time, I decided to be daring. Would it
be okay if I could possibly take two bananas? By
all means, please take two free bananas, the
ladies insisted, adding that someone else once
took 10 free bananas to make banana bread.
With that in mind. I eventually graduated from
taking several bananas to grabbing a whole bunch
of six or seven of the fruit, in the unlikely
event I ever had the compulsion, if not the
ability, to use them to make my own banana
concoction.
I was to learn later that this banana giveaway
was actually a promotion by a local business to
provide the public with a healthy eco-friendly
snack.
But it does much more than that. Living through
these stressful times of Covid-19 and whatnot,
heading to that banana stand to unpeel those
bananas offers great appeal.
First, it forces me to go outside my comfort zone
where you actually might meet and talk to your
neighbor, and second, because the stand is there
every weekday like clockwork, it provides a sense
of comfort and stability that the world hasn’t
gone totally bananas.
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