Banana Smell

Signs that I'm truly weird: this morning about 5:20, I was wrapping up my lunch. My mom wandered upstairs, yawning. (She works from home--and doesn't even have to be "at work" until 7:30.) She stared at me.

"Yes?" I said, not really thinking.

"What IS that thing wrapped in the Safeway bag?" she asked, warily.

I looked down. "Um...it's a banana, mom."

"OH." (pause) "But why is it wrapped up like that?"

Me, totally confused: "Wrapped up like what?"

"Like THAT. It's not in your food sack, it's wrapped up in its own bag, completely separated. Why?"

"Because of banana smell."

"Banana smell?"

"Yes, because bananas, especially super-ripe ones, infest your entire lunch bag with banana smell, and I have an avocado and a tomato and some good cheese..." I trailed off, feeling silly.

She gave me a Look before shuffling off to the computer room. "Honey, it looks like you're taking a dildo to work," was her parting line.

Come on, people! Banana smell! Haven't you ever packed a lunch with a banana in it, only to discover at lunch time that your excellent cheese and ham sandwich, spread thickly with mayonnaise and mustard, or maybe some hummus, but at any rate, a salt and salt sandwich, spread with salt, which you are salivating over as you should...now has a faint but pervasively cloying banana smell about it? You can't taste it, not really. But every time you bring it* to your mouth, you can smell it!

I HATE THAT!

*"it" being "the sandwich". Unattached pronouns allowed to roam unattached, especially in a sentence that contains the words "your mouth", are how rumors get started.