Sometime, when you have nothing better to do, spend some time in a super market. Find a spot where you can stand, not too obvious, and watch people buy bananas. I have had the occasion to do this many times when I was doing demonstrations at Walmart. I often set up by the banana display.
Some people act as if they were banana experts. They pick up a bunch after carefully looking at them, and out of maybe 40 or 50 bunches, they select one bunch, reach out and carefully, lovingly and slowly, pick the bunch up. After they have checked them out for a few moments, then they slowly turn the bunch over, and give the same careful scrutiny to the bottoms.
This rotation of the bananas is done perhaps 3 or 4 times,slowly and meticulously, and all performed with the eye of an expert. I imagine that diamond cutters peruse a 3 or 4 caret diamond with the same adoring look that women give to bananas when they are selecting the bunch that they are going to take home. I have often wondered what they were thinking, or phantasizing about the bananas.
I have seen people take a minute or two, check each banana in the bunch for flaws, pick up many bunches, before finding just the "right one." But I also have seen a customer pick up many of the bunches, check the top, turn them over, put them back and then go to the next bunch.
But I have seen a customer, walk up to the display, pick up a bunch, put them in the cart, all in a matter of seconds.
Do women take a course in Home Economics in High School on bananas, and how to select them, that make them such experts. I have never seen a college course offering a degree in Banana Selecting. OK, now I see, the B.S. really means Banana Specialist. I never knew.
So, next time you visit a super market, spend some time near the banana display, just don't laugh out loud and give yourself away when some woman, or man, go through all these antics, and they will, trust me.
