The Great Banana Debacle

My wife likes to purchase bananas in bulk when they are on sale at the grocery store. A few weeks ago she purchased several bunches. I am not sure what happened to them all, but at the end there was one bunch left and let me say that last bunch was looking pretty ripe. The normally yellow skin had turned to a rather ugly color that is not on the color chart and they contained many large black spots. Everyone who is anyone, except the wife, knows that large dark spots on a banana usually transfer to the inside of the banana in a disgusting big black spot rivaled only by the black fungus on a maple leaf. This black spot reaches deep into the fruit. Here is the story of the great banana debacle of 2024.

I do not recall how many bananas I ate out of those bunches, but slight dark spots on them did not produce the usually expected dark colored inside. Too often I find a banana with a small dark, or near dark, spot and find that it is transferred inside to a large black spot. A few of the bananas in those bunches had one or two areas of inside discoloration but not enough to have me cut it out. I was even beginning to wonder if my luck in selecting bananas had changed. Heck, I was even beginning to believe my spouse's theory that dark spots on the outside do not mean dark, rotten spots on the inside. The wife has the theory, or belief, that a dark spot on the outside does not mean discoloration on the fruit of the banana. I have had too many cases where that is simply not the case. 

So, it came to pass that there were a few bananas in one bunch remaining, all with significant dark dis-coloration and signs of putrefaction that I thought I better start eating them before they go to waste. I pulled one off, and noticed that there was a wax paper wrapping around where they all joined at the stem. I had never noticed that type of thing before. When inquiring of the wife, she said that it must have come that way from the store. I had to remove the wrap to pull the banana from the remaining two or so of its bunch.

As I was about to peel the skin, I once again took notice of the large dark putrefying spot on the ugly colored banana and wondered if it would even be edible. If it was a limb, it would be amputated based simply on its appearance. I hasten to think how much ethylene gas this banana was producing. I should have had a device to measure the air quality of the ethylene chemical in the kitchen. In retrospect, I think it was my banana gassed brain that had me take the next step, leading to the great banana debacle of the year.

It was evening, and the wife was sitting on the sofa either reading or working on a cross stich project. I hobbled over near her and held up the banana with that large gangrenous spot facing her and simply said something to the effect of let's see what it looks like in the inside. I had a high level of confidence that the gangrenous spot would have transferred and ruined the fruit of the banana.

I then start to peel back the outer layer fully expecting to see a large dark spot that would infect deep into the flesh of the banana. Instead, I got a banana that mainly looked scrumptious to eat. In trying to prove my banana theory I ended up proving the wife's theory, that is if one banana can prove a theory. There was no gangrenous blemish on the fruit of the banana. A couple weeks later (on 4/13), I had a banana (from a different bulk purchase) which proved my theory correct (photo below), showing one sample size is not a definitive explanation. 

A Banana from this past weekend (4/13), which proves my 
theory on the blemish transferring through

It should have dawned on me that the cover at the top probably assists with keeping banana's fresh. Further, I should have also felt it to see how soft it really was. Biting into it, I realized it was not as soft as I would have imagined given the significant discoloration on the outside. I am not sure what the moral of the story is, other than I was overly confident. My hubris, or that ethylene-gassed brain, led to the great banana debacle of 2024.  In the end, with my later discovery, my theory of what occurs is still in play. This could make for a great science project.