{solsc} #sol18 5/31 Bananas: The World's Most Imperfect Food

There no words strong enough to convey my hatred of bananas. Even now, writing the word, my nose wrinkles and my face grimaces in disgust.

People always ask what it is about bananas that I don't like. Can I just say EVERYTHING.

First of all, they bruise and brown so easily that they always look spoiled. Then, there's the texture and the taste. They are sooooo slimy when you bite into them. The few times I have tried them, I gagged.

And, worst of all, the smell.

Because when I smell banana, all the rest of my dislike comes to the forefront. I hate the smell so much I refused to let kids eat bananas in my classroom (and I always let kids have healthy food in my room). If a kid brought a banana to eat, they had to go in the hall to eat it. And obviously, the peel was thrown away in the garbage can I kept OUTSIDE of my room. I wasn't going to live with the smell all day.

My husband loves bananas. Eats one every day. I hate having to buy them because I imagine the smell on my hands forever.  He loves me though and keeps a grocery store sack on the counter where he throws his peel when he's done.  I hate it when he eats them in the car because he doesn't want to throw the peel out the window when he's done. Says it's littering. I counter that the peel is A) biodegradable and B) the animals will eat it.

We had a new convenience store open in our town one year and they have the best muffins in all different flavors. About once a week I would stop before school for a muffin and a cappuccino. Caramel Nut muffins are a particular favorite. One morning I grabbed a muffin on my way to school. Imagine my horror when I bit into it and it was BANANA NUT. Not my fault. It was mismarked. The next day, the manager gave me four of my Caramel Nut ones. Trust me when I tell you, I now smell the muffins before I buy them.

Students have had a lot of fun with my banana hatred in the past. I had a group of eighth graders one year who all brought bananas to eat during class. I had to remind them that I held their grades in my hands and they should not try this again. We all laughed, but I think I was serious.

One year at the end of a speech season, my seniors forked and banana'd my yard. I came out to go to school one morning and found lots and lots of plastic forks in my yard (forks were a thing in our town for a while--much better than TP). Around many of the forks were rotten banana peels. I think it backfired on them a little because they kept saying, "Do you know how many bananas we had to eat?"

So, please, don't tell me how good they are for you, don't give me a piece of banana bread and tell me I won't even know it's in there. Just eat the stupid thing in another room.