Is that a banana in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?

Lisa run commutes to work. This sounds pretty hard-core, and it would be, if her work wasn't less than 2 km away from home. Since I have nothing to do all day except hang out in coffee shops, I make a point of meeting Lisa when she is done work. We make plans for dinner and purchase supplies.

Who needs hand weights when you've got groceries?

 And then comes the part where we have to figure out how to get the groceries home. The logistics of run commuting! The difficult part is the produce. Do you put your bananas in a backpack, cross your fingers and risk smushing them all over the inside? (and potentially having your backpack reek of rotten banana for the next ten years, because banana is a smell that does not wash out) Do you jam them in your pockets and then attempt not to make eye contact with anyone on the way home? Or do you hold them in your hands and try to look natural. My pockets were too small for bananas. I dislike the smell of rotten banana. So I went with the third option.

 

(Next house wife project on my list: design a hammock to suspend bananas inside a backpack)

It was actually surprisingly comfortable to run with a banana in each hand. At first I was a bit embarrassed, and had to reassure myself several times that no one was noticing, or caring, what I was doing.

 

The fruit felt pretty balanced, kind of like very very light hand weights. After a couple of minutes I forgot that I was running along a busy road, during rush hour, passing cars stuck in traffic, holding bananas.

Except that I was lying when I told myself that no one was noticing, or caring, what I was doing.

Because Lisa has an uber-lesbian haircut, I was wearing a sportdyke outfit, and there is no way to make holding a banana in each hand as you run down the street with your lesbian partner look innocent.

 

I managed to sort of keep my hands immobilised near my sides for most of the run, and tried to use my fingers to hide most of the banana.

 

No one actually said anything. They didn't need to. The amused mouth twitches, the heads whipping around to follow us as we ran past. I felt like a criminal each time we ran-lurked past a small child.

 

The most blatant attention was from a young man dressed formally, obviously coming from the nearby courthouse.We were almost home and I had my arm around Lisa's shoulder as we chatted and walked to cool down. I still had the bananas in each hand, but we were on a quieter street, and I was feeling comforted by the idea that we were almost home. The man was frowning a little to himself as we approached. As we got closer, he did a double take, first taking in my arm around Lisa's shoulder, then following my arm to my hands, and the banana clenched in each fist. 

 

His eyes got wide. His mouth hung open a little. And then his face lit up, and he grinned. And kept grinning as he walked away.

 

 I hope for his sake that his facial expressions are less transparent in the courtroom. I wanted to yell after him "They're for breakfast, you perv!" But I don't think he would have believed me. And really, there would have been no point. I suppose I'm glad we brightened up someone's day? 

 

I guess the moral of the story is that it doesn't matter if you are holding them by the end and letting them swing, or if you stick them in your pocket, try to hide them with your fingers, or grasp them proudly around the middle. Bananas look like penises, and there is no getting around it.