Bananas & Narwhals
I’ve become addicted to bananas.
In my quest to get back in my ideal shape, I’ve just gone bananas for bananas. I will eat a five or six a day, usually one right after the other. I like them because they are easy to carry around with you, they peel easy and there’s no tools necessary in eating them. They are great to have in my office to eat throughout the day as I work. I like oranges, but they just seem to take too much time and effort to peel. Apples are good, but I have teeth issues (a whole other blog post) and so just gnawing away on an apple is out. I do have a pocket knife at the office and have used it to slice up apples and eat them, but it’s an office. Without a kitchen. So cutting and cleaning is a pain. That’s why I likes me some bananas. This has resulted in almost daily trips to the grocery store to pick up bananas.
One store I frequent to buy for my banana habit is Albertsons. I usually don’t shop regularly at Albertons because I find their prices are bit higher than other places, but they have decent prices on bananas and I’m lazy and they are right next to one of the Subways I frequent. The whole store just seems a little fancy to me. It’s not, if you saw it you’d say, “No, this is just a regular grocery store.” but to me it just gives off the vibe of being fancy.
Perhaps part of the ‘fancy’ factor is that they have televisions at every check stand, so you can watch the tube as you wait in line. And you will always wait in line at this Albertsons because in all the times I’ve been in there they only have two out of the ten or so check stands open. One is always the 12 items or less. The other is a normal one and that one always has 5 or more people in line with big carts full of stuff. So the 12 items or less always has 15 people in it, usually with one item. And the checkers are S L O W in both lines, so a ‘quick trip to Albertsons will become an 30 minute affair. Luckily, they have TVs in line.
One day I’m waiting in the 12 items or less line with my bunch of bananas for the day and I’m watching the TV ans it’s a string of short videos directed towards kids. I find this particularly amusing and there’s not a kid in sight. In fact, with the clientele in the store that morning, I was the closest thing to a kid there. And I’m thirty eight! Anyway, I’m standing there when the TV starts doing a feature about Narwhals. A pleasent lady doing a plesent voiceover was giving all sorts of facts about narwhals. Where they live, what they eat, how big they get, etc.. It was all very fascinating to me when, all ov a sudden she says (and I paraphrase here), “Narwhals have one long horn that comes out of their head just like a unicorn does.”
Wait what?
Did she just use a mythical creature to give kids a frame of reference for a REAL creature?! Or am I out of the loop and unicorns are actually real? Couldn’t they have compared the narwhal to..oh I don’t know, a rhinoceros? Wouldn’t that me more educational?
I know, I know, I’m getting worked up about something silly. I just thought it was ridiculous to try and be ‘educational’ and make that comparison. I paid for my bananas, eventually, and went on my merry way. Keeping one sharp eye open for unicorns.
TALK BACK
What fruits do you recommend to snack on during the day? Low mess, easy to eat. Let me know.
When they are in season, the clementine tangerines are great. Easy to peel and juicy without drips. As far as apples (I have an aversion to eating an unsliced apple too)you can get one of those apple slicer/corer gadgets and do it at home. I take the sliced apple, kinda put it back together and wrap it with the wrap. That way the slices don’t turn brown later.
It’s kinda sad that we assume kids would relate to a cartoon/mythical creature more than a real one. It did sound like they could think “oh yeah, I saw one of those at the San Diego Zoo with Grandma.”