Life Lessons from Bob the Banana

Bob the Banana was in constant fear of being peeled. The thought terrified him. He loved the tree where he lived, all snuggled up close to his brothers and sisters. He loved laying in the warm sunshine. But he knew that harvest time was coming, and that his days on the hillside were numbered. But the hill on which his tree lived was steep, and it was awfully hot out, so he knew it wouldn’t be an easy job to harvest him. But deep down, he knew they would still get to him eventually.

He had heard horror stories about what had happened to other bananas. Getting cut from the tree, put on the truck, sitting for up to a week in a cold warehouse with the drone of forklifts being the only sound you could hear. And then there were the few days after that when he would be put on another truck, a really dark and claustrophobic experience, and suddenly find himself in the bright lights of the neighborhood grocery store, exposed.

But that was the least of the horror.

Bob had heard that he would be handled for days on end by various shoppers, some of whom would probably put Bob and his siblings in the cart, and then decide to put them back. “Too green.” The shame of it. But even worse was “too brown”, “too splotchy” or “too soft”. Those bananas ended up in the trash, or at best, at the rescue mission. Bob lived in a stunningly beautiful place, and ending his life in some dinghy rescue mission in the middle of some run-down part of downtown, probably in another country, was more than he wanted to think about. Bob was an expert at dwelling on the worst-case scenario.

But the worst part of all was that, sooner or later, he was going to get peeled. Someone, maybe an inexperienced little kid, was going to grab him around the torso with one hand and grab him by the head with the other and start doing some serious, fatal damage. After that, he knew he would be eaten. He hoped at least someone with a healthy appetite ate him. He had heard stories of little kids, and even some adults, just eating half of one of his ancestors and then leaving the other half to turn brown and rot!

So Bob just sat in his tree and worried. Even though he couldn’t talk, he had a sense that his worry was contagious. None of the bunch that he belonged to seemed very happy. There isn’t anything pleasant about a bunch of anxiety-filled bananas.

But as the sun set on this particular evening, Bob the banana began to doze off and dream.

In his dream, he was still a banana. Same tree. Same bunch. But the fear and anxiety was gone. He had an assurance that he was going to finish his days right where he was. The whole bunch was happy. In the dream, they actually got to turn yellow while still on the tree! There were no harvesters around. No one carrying a big sharp knife. Just pure stress-free bliss. Not a care in the world. But that’s where the dream took a turn for the worse.

In the dream, the bunch had been yellow for a while, and now they were starting to get a little splotchy. Hardly noticeable at first. But after a few days, Bob looked around and realized that some in the bunch, including one of his best friends, was turning a serious shade of brown. Bob gathered his strength to look down at himself, and was horrified with the reality of what he saw. He was brown too. Perhaps the brownest of them all. And there were a few key places that were really soft and mushy. He began to quietly sob, and that’s when he realized that many of the other bananas were sobbing too. This sobbing grew into outright wailing in a matter of minutes. Some of the bananas even began to scream. That’s when Bob woke up.

The sun was just coming up. Although the dream seemed short, Bob realized that he had slept through the night. That awful dream! It had seemed so real, and Bob remembered every last detail.

This make Bob think. He began to wonder what he was so afraid of. What if everything he had heard about his fate was true? Was that really any worse than rotting on the tree? At least by being harvested, he would get to experience some things that he would certainly never experience just sitting here in the tree. Some of it would be a little painful, but if he was going to eventually rot either way, he began to think that maybe he would like to see the world a little before his time was up.

Bob made up his mind that very moment to embrace his fate, and be OK with whatever happened.

As it turned out, most of what he had heard was true, although none of it was as bad as he had imagined. The worker who cut his bunch from the tree seemed like a really nice guy. The cut was swift and practically painless, and then he handled Bob and the other bananas with the greatest of care so that they wouldn’t get bruised.

Riding on the truck to the warehouse was actually fun! And there were so many other bananas with him before they were shipped to the grocery store, that Bob wasn’t scared at all. It was sort of like being on an adventure.

The grocery store experience was amazing. He felt like a rock star! All those people coming by to stare at him, some of them admiring his brilliant yellowness. His green was almost gone. And he couldn’t have been prouder of his bunch. There were eight of them, and they all looked fabulous!

Bob and his bunch were bought by a beautiful family with a bouncy 2 year old boy. Bob loved his new home. It was really nice and neat, and the counter he was sitting on was right in the middle of the kitchen where he could see everything well. He sat there for three or four days, just enjoying himself.

The boy and his parents had already eaten most of the bunch by then. There were only two bananas left. Since the dream, Bob had had a lot of time to think. Instead of rotting in the tree, wasted and of no use, he was comfortable with his fate now. He wanted to be used. He only hoped that he would get eaten by the little boy, although even that didn’t really matter that much.

The next morning at breakfast, Bob found himself being peeled by the boy’s mom. It hurt a little at first, but was nothing like he thought it would be. All of that wasted time worrying – for nothing. The little boy was sitting in his booster seat, saying “my nanner, pease” over and over again. Bob was happy. He would be strong and live on through this little boy instead of rotting out on the hillside. He wished that he could go back to the other bananas who were still on the trees and explain to them that they had nothing to worry about. Bob was glad that he had changed his attitude from one of dread to one of anticipation and excitement.

The last thing he remembered hearing was “good nanner, mommy”.

And Bob knew that it was true.