I eat a lot of bananas, and so does my son. It’s not unusual for him to eat four in a day. I’m always good for two, occasionally three, and today I had four. I like them ripe, and have been known to eat them when they are dark brown on the outside, almost to the point of turning greasy and black. I will usually slice away the bruised and rotten parts, but not always.
When I shop, I occasionally am a little self-conscious when I pile eleven pounds of bananas on the conveyor belt. I have a line ready just in case the clerk asks what I do with them. I’m going to say that I have a chimpanzee, and he gets really pissed off if we run out, and that I’m tired of scrubbing feces from the wall after he throws it. But the damn clerks never ask.
I guess the clerks see it all anyway, and don’t particularly care to begin with. Condoms and cucumbers and coupons? Whatever. Price check on the zucchini? Sure. They are making their four or five or six dollars an hour (I really have no idea) and it’s a grind of a job to stand for hours on end, dealing with repetitive motion and cranky customers who can’t count, use checks, or smell bad. They have to deal with baggers that can’t bag and managers that don’t care.
But how many people do they see buying twelve pounds of bananas at once? Aren’t they just a little curious? Don’t they want to ask? Couldn’t one of them ask just once. I really want to give them the chimpanzee line.