For the longest time I have hated bananas. I wasn’t exactly sure why until my friend Neil explained it to me. This “banana issue” of mine started in 6th Grade. I was at Saint Mary Sacred Heart School. I remember that I sat towards the back of the room. Neil sat either in front of or behind me. I also sat next to Jenn. I can’t remember the exact exchange that prompted an incident.

I am known for being very quiet and then saying things at the precise moment, sometimes funny, sometimes witty and sometimes mean (back when I was younger of course). I think I said one of those mean things that I thought was funny (I’ve grown up since then, I swear) to Jenn. Jenn took offense to this and acted.

Let me give you a little backstory about the school. It had two floors for classrooms. Grades 1-4 on the 1st floor and Grades 5-8 were on the top floor. Outside each room was a long set of hooks for coats and a shelf. This is where you would hang your coat (or Member’s Only jacket if you were cool) and your bookbag. In the winter you would would also leave your snowy boots on the floor. On the shelf you would put your lunch bag or lunchbox. Once a month we would have hot lunch or pizza from Rico’s. One time I left my sticker collection out there and it got stolen (a story for another time.)

Each day at noon we would go to the hallway get our lunches and a milk. Remember getting cartons of milk with lunch? Then we would bring the lunches back to our desks. During lunch we were talking and laughing and eating. At the end of lunch we would put our trash in our brown paper bags or lunch boxes and talk while we waited for lunch to be over.

The Incident: I don’t remember the exact exchange that I had with Jenn, but I said something and thought it was funny. I turned around, still laughing. Then, WHOMP! Jenn took her lunch bag and smacked me right over the head. The bag exploded and her half eaten container of yogurt began running down my head to my face onto my school sweater. I was stunned, the whole class turned to see what was happening. It was then that I noticed the smell. The yogurt was Strawberry Banana. As it slowly covered my head face and shoulders it took on this completely putrid smell. I was told to go to the boy’s room to clean up.

There is only so much industrial powdered soap, lukewarm water and brown paper towel can do to clean off a young child in school. It could do nothing for the smell. So, for the rest of the day I sat there smelling like Strawberry Banana. It was gross I was self conscious enough as I had hit puberty early and already had a face full of zits. So here I was stinking of banana. Let’s face it the yogurt may have been “strawberry” Banana; however, when you add banana to anything banana becomes the dominant smell. I had to sit there stinking of it.

So that has made me hate bananas ever since. My disgust for nature’s “perfect” fruit has become more irrational and epic as the years have gone by.