Rant #1,824: Loving You Has Made Me Bananas

I enjoy writing this column five days a week, and I often get great satisfaction from what I put down electronically for all to read.

But sometimes, what I write drives me bananas.

That is kind of funny, because I love to eat bananas.

I have always enjoyed bananas, one of my favorite fruits.

I have enjoyed the fruit as a kid, and all through the years leading up to the present time.

But during the present time, eating bananas has taken on greater significance to me, taking precedence over my true favorite fruit, apples.

Here's why.

I have had numerous dental issues during the past few months, not being comfortable eating everything and anything from a piece of bread to a bowl of ice cream.

I can blame that firmly on my soon-to-be former dentist, who did not take care of my teeth very well.

Anyway, during the worst of it, I had trouble eating apples. I could bite into the apple with my front teeth without a problem, but once it came to actually chewing what I bit off, I had some major problems, including pieces of the apple getting caught in between my teeth, which led to a lot of discomfort.

When I finally had that one wisdom tooth removed, I obviously could not eat much of anything that I really had to chomp on for several weeks, so apples were out.

I gravitated toward bananas, because once you peel back the skin, you get about the softest fruit that can be imagined.

So for months, I have stayed away from apples and have moved my sights every day at lunch to having a banana.

Heck, it is healthy. It provides me with plenty of potassium, and it doesn't take too much chomping to digest it fully.

Bananas are, for some reason, the butt of jokes.

Nothing is more basically funny than someone slipping on a banana peel--as Ethel Merman did in the memorable last scene of the classic film "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World," and we often classify people who are one tool short of a set as being bananas.

I don't know where all this comes from, but monkeys eat bananas, and they are thought to be our next of kin, and when we see them eat bananas almost like we do, we laugh, so maybe it has to do with that.

Popular songs have celebrated bananas through the years, such as "Yes, We Have No Bananas," made famous by Jimmy Durante, and a less popular number, the title of today's column, which was sung by Guy Marks as a sendup to 1920s dance hall numbers.

Both Durante and Marks were comedians, so it dovetails into what I said earlier about bananas being funny.

There was also a novelty tune by the Peels called "Juanita Banana," and again, novelty tunes are supposedly funny, and that record was just that, as I remember it.

Perhaps the most famous song about bananas was "The Banana Boat Song (Day-O)" by Harry Belafonte. It kind of mirrored the limbo craze, and it is a fun song to listen to, although not comedy, per se.

And then we have another cultural icon, the Chiquita Banana lady, patterned after another comic, Carmen Miranda, and her South American costumes.

That marketing ploy sold millions and millions of bananas to Americans over the years.

And who could forget the film "Bananas," by Woody Allen, when he was actually funny?

Funny, I don't really care for the variations of bananas, like banana-flavored things and plantains, but I do like longer bananas over shorter ones, but as long as they are not over-ripe, I like any banana.

Once they get over-ripe, they are nearly ready for the garbage pail, but I have had a few of those recently, and they are both mushy and sweet, so I won't die from them if I eat them.

Anyway, that is my view of bananas.

Honestly, they aren't as good as apples, but it's only rock and roll, so I like them.

No, that song has nothing to do with bananas.