1000 Bananas

Lest anyone forget what a pill I could be as a child, I have yet another anecdote for the bulging file. I’m not making any excuses, but it goes back to the innate need for everything to look whole and complete. This has been covered in other articles.

As a child, at my grandmother and grandfather’s house during the day, we had it pretty good. There wasn’t much snack food or coke to be had there, but sometimes there were frozen figs or frozen pineapple to cool us on those hot, sticky Texas City summer days.

I liked bananas, too. The only thing that kept a banana from being perfect was the penchant they had for breaking. That was an action I couldn’t tolerate. For some reason, I felt as though I could not eat the disfigured fruit.

The sad thing is, GranMommy usually peeled them for me. That in itself was not sad; any grandmother would do that for their grandchild. What set this woman apart is the fact that when she peeled a banana, if it broke, I would reject it. Upon my snub of the proffered treat, she would eat the wrecked banana. She would try again. If THAT one crashed, guess what? Right, I didn’t eat it. Wouldn’t touch it. So she ate that one. Looking back, I now recognize the expression on her face as a prayer for strength; for her and the banana.

I am not sure how many bananas that old lady ate trying to appease the persnickety little boy, but I am almost certain she never had a potassium deficiency.

In her later years, she seemed to lose patience easily, and I feel responsible for using up so much of it in my youth.