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"Move your . . . bananas.”
Those magic words have made my summer. Who knows where they will lead.
As the beginning of summer came rolling in—accompanied by my annual urge to consume a healthful diet—I began to buy more fruits and veggies at the grocery store. After my initial watermelon craze, followed by quarts of strawberries, I settled into my weekly bunch of bananas.
Which is when she came into my life.
Using the automated self-checkout machine with the guidance from a disembodied female voice, I’ve sometimes thought of rude or amusing responses. But one day I happened to leave my bananas as the last item to be checked out. And I heard the voice say, “Move your . . . bananas to the bag.”
Now, for some reason, as I was riding my bicycle home down Grandview Avenue with groceries in my backpack and a plastic bag, it struck me as extremely funny what she said and how she said it. It was two things, specifically: the word “bananas” and the pause between “move your” and “bananas.”
I still was cracking up when I got home and began to unload groceries in my kitchen. In fact, I added a rhythm and started to dance from the fridge to the cabinets, putting away foodstuffs and grooving to “move your . . . bananas.”
That was the beginning. Now, it is an obsession.
Because, strange as it sounds, I believe my checkout-lady voice likes me. It’s the seductive way she puts that pause in her phrase as she orders me to move my bananas. No other fruit, food or household good spoken by her has this effect. Apples? Nope. Cabbage? No way. Wheat Thins? Nada. Leaf bags? Hardly.
Bananas, though, are different. It’s that pause and, well, once I swear she cleared her throat. Which I took as flirtatious shyness. So, I hear her bananas phrase and I go wild. It could be the most dramatic pause in the history of man-machine romance—worthy of Shakespeare or maybe Danielle Steele.
I have eaten many bananas this summer. And my love for the disembodied female checkout voice only grows, although I realize the real lady behind that soft sound of efficiency and clarity might prove hard to find. (Don’t deny my dream by trying to convince me the voice has something to do with animated intelligence, OK?)
Now, I think it’s time to take our relationship to the next level. But I need a sign first. After much thought, I have figured out a plan to see if she really likes me—or if she just tells all the guys to move . . . their bananas the same way she tells me.
I’m going to buy just one banana on my next shopping trip. It would blow my mind if she says, “move your . . . banana.” That would mean she recognizes that I’m not like the rest of mankind, buying by the bunch.
And if that’s the case, then I can say with confidence this is not . . . a summertime thing.
I just hope she doesn’t want me for my money.
