Bananas get special treatment
Many things in this world need to be protected: oppressed people, endangered species, natural resources, the ozone layer, innocent children, cute kittens and of course, bananas.
Yes, you read that right. Bananas need to be protected.
Every day, thousands and millions of people worldwide bring bananas to work and school, only to find them incredibly bruised from the journey when the time comes to consume them.
Many people find brown, bruised, squishy bananas to be quite the appetite killer, so they simply toss out the banana, effectively wasting food and depriving the poor banana of its purpose in life.
What an atrocity. How can decent people allow the world to be a place where such a horror occurs on a daily basis?
In a monumental moment for bananas and banana lovers everywhere, Safebanana.com, a UK company, decided to play the swashbuckling hero and save the world’s bananas from a premature toss into the trash can.
Now, thanks to these inventors’ gallant efforts and natural genius, all you have to do is order their fantastic Banana Guard for $7.50, and your banana will make it to work in all it’s appetizing yellow freshness.
Banana Guards are basically just little Tupperware containers shaped to carry a banana. They come in 9 different colors, including glow in the dark, and have special ventilation holes so the bananas will ripen at their natural rate.
I am no expert in bananas. Most of the bananas that enter my kitchen either end up as banana bread or get eaten for breakfast, so transporting them to work has never been an issue for me.
I have always assumed, though, that carrying them in a regular Tupperware container, one that cost me less than $7.50 — plus whatever it costs to ship a Banana Guard from the UK — would be sufficiently effective in keeping the banana intact.
Maybe the Tupperware doesn’t come with ventilation holes, but how much ventilation does a banana need in four hours? If I really were intent on having the banana both protected and ventilated, I could always cut holes in the Tupperware lid for no additional cost.
Costs and absurdity aside, the Banana Guard does seem rather charming, if not just because it’s a novelty. However, it leads me to wonder: what sort of trend is this starting?
Next thing we know, the people who prefer apples will feel left out and demand special carrying cases designed especially for apples. Grapes will get individual containers so they don’t bump into the other grapes and get bruised. Peach-lovers will want cute little peach cases complete with a high-tech conditioning system that keeps the fuzz from loosing its texture. Of course, if the company capitalized on this, they could make a small fortune.
However, there is one further thing they will need to do to get my attention. I am a big fan of those little dancing bananas that have taken the Internet by storm.
If the Banana Guard were developed into something that could animate real life bananas and make them dance on my kitchen counter as they wait to be eaten, that would make my day.
But then, it would take a lot to convince me I’m not hallucinating
Columnists' opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of The Spectrum