Banana Bake

You know when you go to the store and spot the hottest looking batch of bananas you've ever seen, and you think to yourself, "Now that's a hot looking batch of bananas."

Well, I did such a thing the other day. I went to this place called Farmer's Market, thinking, based on its name and scores of produce before me, that I could trust what they were selling. So I picked up the bananas, that hadn't ripened yet, and walked them home. But two days later --

-- and they looked like withering clumps of brown mush ready to be sent to their dead place. Despite the lack of life in them, however, I definitely detected a note of mockery as they lay there, still, silent. And I was reminded of it every time I entered the room and smelled them.

So I decided to bake them.

I don't cook. I want to be a chef, but I don't cook. So I certainly don't bake, instead encouraging others to bake so that I may lick the bowl. Well, things have changed.

"I think we should make banana bread," I said, with emphasis on "we," to Meredith the other night after she had just gotten home from looking into people's bodies.

"Do we have the ingredients for it?"

"I think we do," I said, and began rifling through her recipe book, which I noticed had one for banana bread. I went into the kitchen and got the measuring cups out and checked off one by one the ingredients we'd need.

We were ready to go and so Meredith went downstairs. The kitchen is upstairs. She left me alone to do it. And this wasn't even going to be a bowl I'd want to lick. I figured I could get it started and she would come back and take the measuring cups from me. So one after one I poured, tossed, and sprinkled the ingredients into the bowl. Then I mashed the three mocking bananas between my fingers and proceeded to mix it up in all its glory.

Still no Meredith, so I had no choice but to put it in the oven. And due to the incompetence of our oven -- slanted shelf, uneven heater, etc. -- an hour later it was done. I baked banana bread all by my damn self. And it never saw the light of the next day.