Some Facts About Bananas

The following article consists primarily of excerpts from an upcoming ethnography detailing one man's life and career in Los Angeles, California.

It is by no means comprehensive.

Instead, it is a collection of... The Little Details.

• People keep telling me I've lost weight.
• ...Okay.
• To be fair, my pants are pretty loose.
• Have you ever typed something and instantly regretted it? This is one of those times.
• Like, there's probably a joke in there about loose pants or something, but it's really cheap and lazy and honestly - not that funny. And yet I'm not even motivated to try and make the cheap, lazy joke. "LOOSE PANTS"! BRRRRREAAHHHHH!!!
• For those of you who have not met me in person, "BRRRRRREAAHHHH!!!" is the obnoxious, self-conscious noise I make after some particularly asinine, jackass remark. It is not unlike a cow bellowing.
• Let's get back to the pants.
• My jeans, in addition to getting bigger, are getting shabbier. I totally wore out a pair of Old Navy jeans - both knees are blown out and if I just had a sleeveless t-shirt and a hot pink scarf around my head I'd totally look like a reject from a Guns 'N' Roses concert circa 1989.
• And that's saying a lot because you have to be PRETTY fashion-hindered to get REJECTED from a GNR concert.
• Do you ever wonder why these things are bullet-pointed? I mean couldn't a guy just write in regular paragraph format and use parentheses and such? It certainly could read that way. And how is it decided just WHEN a new bullet point starts anyway? Frankly, after three sentences, we all just ignore the bullets and read it as a stream of consciousness anyway.
• All of that was an aside.
• But the pants thing, here's the thing: You CAN'T find pants at the Goodwill. And has been well-documented, I love the Goodwill.
• Someday my wife is going look wistfully out the window as I pull up the driveway and say to our child, "Looks like your father stopped at the Goodwill again..."
• GOT THAT FUTURE WIFE? I HOPE YOU ARE TAKING NOTES!
• The bad news is that, when this scene happens, I will be 112 years old.
• The good news is that I will be driving a HOVERCAR!
• There's also a 30% chance our child will be robotic, a dog, or both.
• The best thing about a robotic dog? When you're not home, it vacuums.
• My future wife and robotic dog would have had a chance to rehearse their pivotal Goodwill-commentary scene today if they'd been there to watch me coming up to the stairs of my apartment.
• (For those of you who are wondering, this is where the pants thing comes back in.)
• I had a nice Claiborne shirt and three wonderful ties bundled neatly in a Goodwill bag. Total purchase price: twelve bucks.
• Problem being, I WENT THERE LOOKING FOR PANTS.
• So that's the deal: You can find a shirt that fits, practically new and perfectly serviceable. (Some would argue stylish, even, if you are into being a preppy douchebag, as I apparently am.) You can find three terrific ties for two dollars, EACH! But if you want to find pants at the Goodwill? Not gonna happen.
• Oh, they have a rack of pants, sure! But while the vast majority of shirts and jackets trend toward the average size of the population, all the pants seem to be tailored for a person who is roughly the same general shape and size of a 55-gallon drum.
• This may be a set of dimensions you might find appealing in a robotic dog. Not in a pair of pants.
• Now, just to prove there's an exception to every rule: I did try on ONE pair of pants at the Goodwill today.
• They were too tight.
• If you're really keeping score, that's technically an exception to, like, three rules.
• I never claimed to be consistent.
• Did you write that down, future wife?
• What? The dog can record voice-activated memos? You are shitting me! Well, I'm glad we didn't have a kid.
• As is well-documented, they never listen.
• That's what my dad says anyhow.
• BRRRRREAAHHHHH!!!
• Hey, who wrote the title to this blog post anyway? Something about... "bananas"?
• Ooh! I learned ten facts about bananas this week. Listen:
• Fact 1: If you buy bananas on a Tuesday, they will ripen approximately two to three hours later.
• Fact 2: This period may be shorter if you live in Los Angeles and store your bananas on top of the refrigerator.
• Fact 3: You should not store your bananas on top of the refrigerator.
• Fact 4: Overripe bananas will turn brown. This is an indication they are no longer edible, unless you're really ambitious and decide to use them to make banana bread and let's face it - Americans are too hooked on convenience and instant gratification to put up with that shit.
• Fact 5: Brown bananas should be disposed of immediately.
• Fact 6: If brown bananas are not disposed of immediately, they may begin to internally liquefy.
• Fact 7: The skin of brown bananas does not constitute a load-bearing material and lifting a bunch of brown bananas - no matter how small -- may result in a critical breach of banana surface integrity.
• Fact 8: Should a breach of banana surface integrity occur, note that the contents of the banana structure immediately convert from a strictly-internal experiment in the chemical process of liquefaction to a largely EXTERNAL demonstration of both the volume and viscosity of fermented banana juice.
• Fact 9: The amount of fermented banana juice produced and its subsequent viscosity are directly related to the banana's initial proximity to both Los Angeles, and the top of a refrigerator.
• Fact 10: Properly placed and fermented, the juice from a bunch of overripe bananas can stick the door of an Amana fridge closed with a force equivalent to approximately 2,856 newtons, or, 580 lbs. You may not discover this for some hours.
• The good news is, I didn't ruin any pants cleaning up the mess.
• The bad news is, some of it got on the robotic dog.
• Now I guess I'll have to do all the vacuuming.

-Tom, BRRRRRREAAHHHH!!!