Nothing banana, please

I do not like bananas.  Never have.  I do not see a banana entering my digestive track in the future.  There is a chance bananas are in heaven.  I know heaven is my destiny, and if the yellow fruit is there, I am confident God can adapt my taste buds to enjoy them or, He will change the chemical makeup of the banana so I might consume them with pleasure.

It is not that I do not like the flavor, for I have tasted them.  I just can’t get past the smell.  When my olfactory receptors sense their plume, my feet begin moving away.  I don’t gag, but my fight or flight instincts kick in.

When I was in middle school, we lived in Centralia, Illinois, for a brief time.  While I was lying on the sofa near sleep, Louie, my older brother, laid a banana peel on my chest.  The plume awoke me, and I jumped up to getaway.  The nasty thing hit the floor.  My loving brother grabbed the skin and began to chase me around the house, waving the floppy thing right behind my head.  I have a distinct memory of Mom laughing in the background.

Banana bread is like a saboteur for me.  You just can’t tell what the loaf of homemade coffee cake is unless you taste or ask.  It is a socially awkward moment for me.  How can I ask what the flavor is, then decline to take a piece from the lovely smiling person who made it?  But, if I take a bite, what do I do with it?

The absolute worst incident of a banana collision was at a church ice cream fellowship.  It has never occurred to me that someone would put bananas in homemade ice cream.  I’ve never seen banana ice cream in the freezer at the grocery store.  So, when I went through the serving line of freezer cans and saw the full freezer of “vanilla” ice cream, I have the server fill my bowl.  I stepped out of line and joined a group of laughing men to fellowship and enjoy my ice cream.  With the first heaping spoon full of the retched stuff, I was stuck.  The banana stuff had to leave my mouth instantly, but where, how?  I mustered up my courage and swallowed.  Without saying a word, I left the group darted to the bathroom, chunked the ice cream in the trash, rinsed out my mouth, covered my bowl with the paper towel, then I dried my hands.  At the next ice cream fellowship, I saw to it that each vendor had a name tag for their frozen offering.

This banana curse has a redemptive side.  One of the ways I show my love for my wonderful wife is to make her a banana/peanut butter sandwich.  I voluntarily peel the thing, slice it, and lay it on the unsuspecting slice of bread that has to carry it.  I do lament the abuse of perfectly good peanut butter.

And that, my friends, is a truth about service.  Serving is not always pleasant for the server.