Because every Friday needs a laugh.

I should warn you, though, that I might be the only one laughing at this. Maybe because I’m slightly hysterical after a week of my chicken broth and fruit and spinach diet AND all of the calamities that have befallen us this week. But maybe because it’s a family joke, this banana story.

See, many, many, many moon ago when my sister and I were little – like, I was maybe in middle school and Kim was in upper elementary – there was this one day when Kim wanted a banana. Really, really wanted a banana. No problem – we often had fresh fruits and veggies in the house because of a family run fruit stand down the street a ways that sold fresh produce pretty close to dirt cheap. We usually had fresh bananas in the wire fruit basket that hung in front of the kitchen window. Kim found a bunch of bananas, took one, and started to peel it.

Only it wouldn’t peel.

It was pretty green, Kim’s banana, and it wasn’t quite ready to be eaten yet. But Kim liked green(ish) bananas and so when the peel wouldn’t start, Kim decided the thing to do was get a butter knife to get it started. This is the point of the story where I always wonder where my mom was. She couldn’t have been at home or else the banana situation never would have gotten quite so out of control. Mom would have stepped in, worked her magic, and voila! Kim would have been enjoying her banana. Instead, she was now losing the battle of peeling that sucker, even armed with a knife. First she tried cutting into the step so she could get purchase. When that didn’t work, she tried peeling the entire banana with the knife, as if it were an apple. Yeah, that didn’t work so much either. So Kim ended up with a half-skinned, sorry-looking green banana that she really couldn’t eat. And a big sister who was in tears because she was laughing so hard.

All of that is faintly amusing, yes? A smile, but not a laugh. Except I walked in the kitchen last night and saw that this happened:

That would be Gracie, standing there with a rather amusing, sad little look on her face as she kind of laughed, held up her green banana, foiled butter knife, and pleaded, “Help?”

This time Mom was home, stepped in, and worked her magic. Right after she grabbed her cell phone and snapped a pic to send to Auntie Kim. Because this? Is just as funny the second generation time around…

Tags: bananas, green bananas, peeling bananas