Vancouver Banana Famine
Where, oh where, have all the bananas gone?
On Sunday Lisa went grocery shopping while I stayed home with the boys. When she got back she told me she had been to Winco and Safeway and they were both out of bananas. A little inconvenient, yes. A little strange, maybe. But no cause for alarm, right?
Then yesterday night I stopped at Fred Meyer on my way home from work to grab us a few essentials and they, too, were out of bananas. So what’s the deal? Is this just an odd string of coincidences limited to our family? Or is Vancouver in the middle of a genuine banana famine?
At Fred Meyer I tried to hunt down a produce person and get a conclusive explanation, but they were all hiding in shame. Which, of course, leaves me to speculate in clueless torment. Maybe the banana supply always runs thin in February and I’ve just never noticed before. Perhaps there has been some kind of natural disaster in Argentina. Or maybe a monkey-heavy circus just passed through town. If you have a better theory (or better still some actual insight), please chime in.
So far, 2008 is shaping up to be an unusual year. First the tornado, now the banana famine… maybe next week it will rain frogs and the Columbia river will turn to blood.
Honestly, I think we could endure all the plagues of Egypt at this point if we could just get hold of a simple banana.
14 Comments So Far
2. Murrilia wrote:
I bought some this morning at the Fred Meyer on the corner of 4th Plain and Grand. They should have some left =)
3. prnsis_anita wrote:
We got bananas at Walmart just a couple days ago. Are you sure she is just not loopy from lack of sleep or alone time and didn’t realize the banana were there? I think its time for Lisa to have some Mommy alone time and then you and the 3 boys can go BANANAS hee hee
4. Clint wrote:
Oh, I see what’s going on here, everyone has bananas but us, eh? This is shaping up to be a highly targeted conspiracy of banana denial…
5. Jason wrote:
We also have no bananas. We’ve been doing a lot of monkeying around here at Kuzoa though, so if we end up GOING bananas, I’ll let you know. That would at least be something.
9. Lisa wrote:
ROFLS ROFLS ROFLS!! BANANA PHONE! badger badger badger badger SNAAAAKE!!! Lint, we have nanners here at MY house, too! 
10. Maureen Williams wrote:
I heard somewhere once that real bananas would stop existing soon and all we would have would be cloned bananas because it’s really hard to get seeds out of bananas so they’ve given up in lieu of cloning. Therefore maybe your state has outlawed cloned food items and that’s why noone has any. 
11. Clint wrote:
Wow, you’re painting a bleak vision of the future there. I’m seeing some short story potential… “The World’s Last Banana.” Or how about a remake of I AM LEGEND, but with bananas instead of people? I think the darkseeker bananas would be especially chilling.
12. Annabellissima wrote:
Alright, Anne is here to geek out on you.
Turns out you’re on to something. Sean and I, not 2 hours ago, were talking about this. Sean and I are NPR junkies now (have been for a year now!). He listens to NPR all day while he’s working on Polycarp, and was telling me about a segment they had about bananas.
Did you know that the banana we have today is not the banana that our grandparents (and maybe parents?) ate yesteryears? Apparently the US used to import another banana - a BIGGER, TASTIER banana, nonetheless - whose species was eventually completely wiped out by the “Panama Virus” which was somehow created when the banana made it’s way to China. So that banana no longer exists and now have the bananas we’re all familiar with now, which are apparently “lesser” bananas!
But on NPR, they were talking about how the banana we’re all familiar with now is on the same path and within about 20-30 years will be wiped out in the same way (by a banana-killing virus of some sorts). So now they are working on genetically-engineering a form of the banana that will not succumb to the viruses.
I had no clue!
So while this is probably not why there is a shortage in Vancouver currently (it’s prolly bad weather = bad orchards) it could very well be the case someday.
Did you know that there was a “Banana Republic” that toppled governments by denying them bananas if they didn’t do what they wanted? Did you know that the song, “Yes, We Have No Bananas” is about the Panama banana virus?
CRAZY!
I wish I could taste one of those ancient bananas (preferably not in ancient condition tho :p).
There’s your history lesson for the day. You don’t even wanna know how Sean and I got on the subject!
13. Clint wrote:
Wow Anne, I’m sitting here in amazement at your banana scholarship. Very cool. I think you’ve officially equipped me to sweep the ‘Going Bananas’ category on Jeopardy. Thanks Chiquita!
14. Dharma Bum wrote:
We have bananas in North Dakota, frozen ones. They must be feeding us the virus ridden ones which is why we are still crazy enough to live here.
1. Maria wrote:
Hey Clint….I got them all!!!!!!!!!! The crazy woman that I am just gots to have my naners! hahahahahaha!
Maria