Insert Gwen Stefani Lyric Here

I have recently fallen in love with the “Oatmeal Bar” at Café Bistro. The plethora of options is a king’s ransom. Four different oatmeals, twelve types of fruit, six types of granola, four types of sugar, five types of raisins (for god sakes!), and seven different species of nuts. Who knew there were so many nuts awake at 7:30?

I’m becoming a fiend, concocting numerous complicated combinations on the subway ride to work. “Craisens, strawberries, flax granola, skim milk oatmeal, and some walnuts.” There is one item however, that never even broaches my pondering. Bananas. Why you ask? Warm bananas make me feel like I just saw George Jones nude. While I appreciate his music, I’m not sure I can stomach him all sexed up.

I love bananas plain, but make them all warm and gooey, and count me out. Unless of course you serve me Banana’s Foster with ice cream, caramel, and the alcohol that catches fire. And so goes the dilemma of the banana, there is no other food on earth that can be so immediately tantalizing and so immediately repulsive.

Bananas are firm and soft at the same time, they are slimy but not too slimy, sticky but not very sticky, incredibly moist but not wet. The delicious dichotomies in play are almost too much to handle. Besides being varied in their feel, banana’s can also be served a million ways: naked, in your cereal, fried, in bread, you get the idea. Bananas make grapes look foolish in this arena. “Dude I love grapes”, fine whatever, but you can either eat them or make them into wine. And don’t give me that “you can put it in a fruit salad” argument; fruit salad is a crutch for the indecisive.  

I think the reason I don’t like warm bananas is that they feel like baby food. When they are mushy, bananas become a gooey shell of their former robust selves.  Oh and speaking of mushy, do you remember the first time you bit into a bruised spot? My gag reflex always kicks in when I am expecting something hard but get something incredibly soft……no homo

Perhaps the funniest thing about bananas is that some people refuse to eat whole ones on principle. You have that friend who’s all: “There’s no way I’d eat a banana, I get too self conscious”. In other words, I do not want to eat a food that makes me look like I am performing a sexual act. I get it, but consider this; those same people have no problem burying their face in some watermelon. I’m just saying.

That turned out way more sexual than I had intended it to, but I guess sometimes these things happen. My favorite type of banana? Banana chocolate chip bread or pancakes. Damn you banana, damn you. I’m Teddy Jones and this is The Gumption.