BANANAS: THE VICTORIAN LADY OF THE FRUIT KINGDOM

You can't discuss candidates for the Mt. Rushmore of Fruits without mentioning the banana. One of the world's most time-honored and well-loved fruits, bananas are not only great to put into your mouth, they're great to eject from your mouth (read: say). Banana. Just say it. Banana. What a fun word. Bananananannaana. You can repeat those na-na's for as long as you want and it still sounds right. Banana. Bananananana. Fun!

But the banana loses serious points because of its role as the Victorian Lady of the Fruit Kingdom. Two major flaws of the banana prevent it from being a fruit powerhouse.

FLAW NO. 1: Bananas, like Victorian Ladies, are really hard to transport. 

Let's say you're going to the library for the day. Gonna do some work. You need fuel for that work, because nothing is worse than being interrupted by hunger once you're on a roll. 

Well, why not bring a banana? It's healthy. It's tasty. It provides potassium. You can eat in one hand while working with the other. On paper, the banana is a superstar, the undisputed champion of the welterweight fruit division. 

But the rosy glow of bananadom comes crashing down as soon as you remove that banana from its bunch and confront the dilemma of banana transportation. How the fuck do you move this thing from the kitchen to the library without bruising, mangling and seriously mushifying it?

Like the Victorian Lady, the banana requires supreme care when handling. Think of the exhaustive ordeal it is to get the Victorian Lady from her Victorian mansion into the center of her Victorian town, so she can buy a new dress and nibble on a crumpet. First, you have to be a gentleman and open the front door of the house for her. Then, you have to gently take her and assist her as she gingerly steps into her carriage. She's no common prostitute: you can't just toss her in the trunk like a bag of groceries. Then you have to travel at the slowest speed possible so there's absolutely no turbulence in that carriage when you're moving. God forbid the Victorian Lady is subjected to an unsteady carriage ride.

The banana, though nowhere near as rich or classy, demands the same treatment. First, you have to gently place your banana in your backpack. You can't throw it in as if it were a Snickers bar, or even a Granny Smith apple. Then, you have to zip your backpack in such a way that the contents won't shift when moving. Lastly, when you're riding in your car, riding your bike or walking, you have to be extremely careful not to make any sudden movements: a sharp right turn might cause that cool Nalgene bottle to take an unexpected dive into the lower left corner of the backpack, thus battering the defenseless and weak banana nestled in the supposedly safe middle pocket. 

It's a huge ordeal. No other "convenient" fruit requires as much care when transporting. But even after a safe passage, how can you really tell if the banana is unscathed? This brings us to problem number two.

FLAW NO. 2: Bananas, like Victorian Ladies, are covered head-to-toe in disguising garb, and are thus hard to properly evaluate.

Unless the peel of a banana -- the only part you can actually see without unwrapping the fickle fruit -- is completely unblemished (very rare case), you have no way of knowing what that banana looks like on the inside. 

Like the Victorian Lady, the banana is nearly impossible to size-up externally. Think about the Victorian Lady's absurd clothing. No ankles exposed. No wrists exposed. Not even hands: gloves worn at all times. Face, really the only part of open skin, shrouded by a veil and an unfathomably large umbrella. How can you accurately size up this woman? How do you know what her body looks like under all the nonsense? She might have a huge scar on her right arm. There could be a giant birthmark right under her ribcage. Her calves might be a factory of cellulite. Her breasts might be enormous, minute, dilapidated, supple: you have no idea, thanks to her corset. Maybe she has leftover creases on her stomach from Victorian-era liposuction, which involved rubbing alcohol and lots of leeches. The point is, you have no idea. With all that cloth around her, it's impossible to tell.

The banana is the same way. It's completely covered, head-to-toe, with that mysterious yellow peel. Finding a correlation between discoloration on the peel and discoloration on the inside of the banana is no sure thing, either. Is that brown patch on the middle third of the banana just a sign of ripening fruit, or is it a marker of abuse and bruising? Will there be mush near the tip, where the peel is an unblemished yellow, but the consistency feels suspiciously soft? Will there be any renegade markings on the inside of the banana that the peel just doesn't reveal, like those mysterious black spots that you can't even really identify? The point is, you don't fucking know. You just can't tell till you peel that fucker off. 

The Victorian Lady perished along with her era at the turn of the 19th century, though the banana is still one the world's most revered fruit. Despite its difficult ways, the banana will likely remain in the forefront of the fruit kingdom for many years to come. Whether I ultimately lose patience with it and discard it from my fruit repertoire remains to be seen.

CAPTAIN CHEDDARSTORM