I May Be Going Bananas

I JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND SOME PEOPLE. No, that’s not accurate. Closer to the nugget of Truth would be, “I just don’t understand most people. Of course, of the few people that I do think I understand I’m usually wrong.

It’s not that I think I am superior or more intelligent than the bulk of humankind it’s just that my most frequently muttered phrase is, “Why they do that?”

A prime example of my mystification with people happened yesterday.

The Place: St. Arbucks The Time: Way too early

I drove, somehow, down the street and pulled into my usual Gimp Spot in St. Arbucks parking

lot. As I stood at the counter waiting for one of the baristas to acknowledge my presence I noticed something new.

For the last year or so there has been a small pile of bananas next to the cash register (or whatever they are called these days.). I guess some people enjoy a banana with their coffee. Sometimes the bananas are displayed in a nice structural design that could be entitled “M. C. Escher Has A Banana.”

This supply of bananas gets refreshed when they start to go bad and turn black. They lose their appeal when you have to shoo away a squadron of flies as you order your coffee.

But yesterday morning they threw me a curveball. Oh, the bananas were there, bright and yellow. The change was a small sign sitting atop a small metal flagpole. St. Arbucks had to have these signs designed, constructed, and distributed to some 25,085 stores worldwide. 25,085

little signs saying “Banana.”

Really? Banana? And all this time I thought those long yellow things were Watermelons!

Who in Seattle thought that these signs were necessary and had the moxie to get the money approved to have 25, 085 little signs made stating the obvious?

25,085 signs must have cost as much as a whole bunch of “Peppermint Zodiac Unicorn Mocha Frappuccinos” or those Sausage, egg, and rubbery cheese sandwiches. Maybe as many as twenty-five of each of those things.

In all honesty, I do appreciate St. Arbucks efforts in signage. The next time you are in a St. Arbucks take a look at the signs. Most of their menu items exist nowhere else and need translation. The baristas must get special training and carry around little pocket dictionaries, “Starbucks to English and English to Starbucks.”

They are big with signs – everything for sale has a sign on it, but I really don’t thing the

“Banana” sign was needed

Terre Haute (That’s French for “We have a wide variety of fruit.”), has a population enriched by people from all around the world, but I’d wager that 99.9999% of them can recognize a banana when they see one. The only exception might be that guy who moved here from Alaska to open a Fried Fur Seal on a Stick restaurant. (OK, I made that that up. He was from Texas.)

Tomorrow morning, I may break down and buy a banana, but not until I get a barista to explain it to me.

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