Rotting

A few months ago (6 months to be exact), as I walked into the kitchen, I discovered I had some fruit flies hovering like miniature vultures around my fruit bowl. Apparently my fruit was going bad, and it was an ample amount too. Discovering rotting fruit really really irritates me. I tend to buy a lot of fruit and vegetables. Sometimes I buy too much. I do this without even knowing it. I’ve thrown out more rotten fruit and veggies in the past year than I can count. Seriously, I think I have a problem. Perhaps I need rehab.

Nevertheless, as I was throwing some of the fruit in the trash, I discovered a banana that was mushy but not quite “bad”. I mean, there wasn’t mold growing out of it or anything. Yeah, there were little fruit gnats flying around it, but it still maintained it’s normal color, so I offered it to my son. He wanted no part of it and asked if I was trying to poison him. Remind me again why we have children if it’s not to ultimately end our lives in a mental hospital.

I told him I wasn’t trying to poison him and I explained that it wasn’t rotten, no no, it was just very very ripe, and good for him, after all humans need a good supply of potassium in their bodies on a daily basis, and the best banana is a brown banana….why doesn’t he know this already? He told me if it was that good for a body then perhaps I should eat it myself. “I, um…well I don’t want to eat it because it’s too mushy for my liking”, I told him. He countered with the same reason for not wanting it himself. Ugh. Then a really cool idea entered my head. Normally when I have a really cool idea it involves cooking or baking, and that’s exactly where I was going with this idea. Frozen banana-strawberry slushies was what I was thinking, so I threw it into the freezer. Frozen banana-strawberry slushies sounds good, right? Not only did it sound good but I was able to save a piece of fruit from the trash, I was being frugal, a good trait so I hear. Well…

I’m sure it would have been delicious within a reasonable amount of time, but three months later (last week) I found it in my freezer as hard as a rock. The skin looked as if it was crystallized. There was no way we could use that thing so I threw it in the trash and realized I had not saved it after all. It ended up in the exact place I tried in vain to keep it from. There’s a learning lesson somewhere in all of this and I think I know what it is. I will never freeze a banana.