Going bananas!

I've never been much of a fruit eater. An occasional orange, fresh strawberries, an apple once or twice a year and that's pretty much enough fruit for me. Except for bananas. I don't eat bananas often, either, but I buy them fairly regularly. If there are firm, unblemished bananas in the store, bananas with no green ends and no brown spots, some of them are going home with me.

I know perfectly well that I'll only have time to eat one or two bananas before they start getting spots and turning softer than I like. But do I buy one or two? Of course not. I buy four or five. Then I take them home, eat one or two over the next couple of days, and wait until the rest turn dark and disgusting and start leaking onto my kitchen counter. Then, maybe, I'll throw them out.

Back in my "good-little-wife" days, I'd turn overripe bananas into fresh-baked loaves of banana-nut bread. For someone who thinks of carrot cake as a vegetable, that's a good use of bananas! I still enjoy banana-nut bread, but I don't bake much these days. For one reason, it takes time I prefer to use in other ways, and for another reason, I can't be trusted alone with homemade baked goods.

Anyway, back on topic, I've been aware of my excess-banana-buying habit for quite a while, and it's been bothering me. Maybe that's why my subconscious mind helped me figure out how to stop letting bananas go bad on my kitchen counter.

On my way home from work this evening, I picked up a few groceries. It's the first time I've shopped since May 21, according to the blog entry I wrote the next day, so I've gone 12 days without buying any groceries except for one loaf of bread and three 12-packs of Diet Coke. And, no, I didn't buy any bananas today.

Nevertheless, when I got home and unloaded my trunk, I found one white plastic bag containing five very dark, mushy bananas. Evidently, I bought them on my last trip to the grocery store and they never even made it into the house! And I never missed them!

My new method is still wasteful, but I think it's gonna work well for me. All I had to do was toss the bag of bananas directly into the garbage. Easiest cleanup ever.