Bananas

I’ve never really liked shopping at those big, warehouse mega stores.  When they first came out, the idea was that you paid a yearly membership fee, and then you shopped there and saved money by buying the stuff you need in bulk.  I’m always a bit suspicious about this idea of saving money by buying in bulk, and even though they kindly inform you on your receipt that today “you saved $46.29,” I don’t feel like I really saved anything when I just spent $200.  Now if I had just spent $46.29 and had saved $200, well then that would be a different story, but it never works out like that.

One of my problems is that the quantities are so large I’m not sure anybody needs the sizes their selling.  I mean does anybody really need a 20lb. bag of pretzels or a barrel of pickles, or 1000 vitamins.  Even if you had more than one person in your household taking a daily vitamin you would still have enough vitamins for a year and does anybody really need to have enough vitamins for a year sitting in their cupboard.

And I know that many of the people who shop there own small business’ or restaurants and they take advantage of the bulk buying, but I’m guessing that number is actually quite small.  I also realize that these stores have branched out and have become more than just a store to sell grotesquely large quantities of food.

At my local store, I can get a prescription filled at their pharmacy, have some new tires put on my car, get a hearing test, buy a cell phone, get pictures developed and even get an eye test and new glasses.  I also could buy some patio furniture, a grill, a kids outdoor play set, blue jeans and even a new best selling book.  Now this might just be my own personal preference, but I prefer to shop at a book store for my books and not at a store where I can also get free samples of mini sausages.  And while I see all these services being used when I shop there, I’m betting that the majority of people are there for the food, the household items and the free sausages.

I see these stores as a representation of our over spending, over eating, over consuming, throw away American culture.  But that’s not even the real reason I dislike shopping at these stores, no the real reason has to do with bananas…and a podcast.

I love listening to podcasts, especially on my commute to work, even more than listening to music on the radio.  In my weekly rotation are podcasts about news and current events, sports, comedy and one of my favorites is a strength and conditioning podcast called “the industrial strength show” hosted by a self proclaimed “New Jersey meathead” named Joe Defranco.  This podcasts gives great information about strength and conditioning, nutrition and even business advice, all dispensed in an entertaining manner.  And it just so happened that at the end of one of the episodes the host gave a tip about buying bananas that he said would change our lives, and quite frankly he was right.

For as long as I can remember I’ve been buying bananas like most people, perusing the bananas for a few seconds and then buying a bunch that looks pretty good, you know not too many yellow ones, not too many green ones.  But what usually happens is that by the end of the week I always had a couple of brown bananas that were too soft and mushy to enjoy even if I smeared Nutella on them.  Long time readers of this blog will notice that I have once again managed to work a Nutella reference into a blog post…ahem moving on. Although I hate throwing food away, the soft, brown bananas would usually get thrown out or perhaps if I had enough time on the weekend, I might make a loaf of banana bread.

But at the end of the podcast the host advised that there was no rule that said you had to buy all your bananas from the same bunch, and the proper way to buy bananas was to pick out a couple of yellow ones from a bunch that are ready to be eaten today and tomorrow, then pick out a couple of yellowish/greenish ones from another bunch that’ll be ready in a couple of days, and then from another bunch pick a couple of green ones that will be ready by the end of the week.  And by simply doing that you’ll always have a perfectly ripe banana ready to be eaten.

Boom, mind blown, life changed.  How could this be life changing advice you ask dear reader.  I’ll tell you……no longer do I throw away bananas at the end of the week, nor am I making as much banana bread, and if you’ve seen me with my shirt off lately you’ll know this is a good thing…less brown bananas, means less banana bread.

Which brings us back to my local warehouse mega store.  I just so happened to need a few items last week and one of them was bananas.  To my utter dismay they do not allow you to pick and choose individual bananas from bunches.  All their banana bunches are wrapped in tape thereby nullifying the picking one from this bunch, two from this bunch.  I stood there for a moment dumbfounded, contemplating what to do, it had been over a year since I had to buy bananas like this.  How could this be? How could they be limiting my choice?  Don’t they listen to the same podcast I listen too?

I was hesitant to rip the tape off of multiple bunches of bananas just to satisfy my banana buying tendencies.  Reluctantly I bought a bunch of bananas all taped together, and invariably, and I suppose inevitably it’s the end of the week and sure enough I have some brown, soft bananas that are perfect for banana bread.

So this dear reader is the real reason I dislike the membership warehouse, mega store.  Their view of everyone buying items the same way.  Their idea that we all need 100 snack size bags of chips and 25lbs. of chicken wings, their idea that we all just mindlessly push around a shopping cart loading up on stuff we really don’t need, in quantities nobody should be buying.  And yes their prohibiting the individuality of buying bananas by picking and choosing ones from different bunches….this is my problem with the membership warehouse, mega store.

Now, if you’ll excuse me I have some banana bread to make, and I also purchased a 10lb. jar of Nutella (again with the Nutella reference?) I mean everyone needs a 10lb jar of Nutella, right?  Also, I have a podcast to listen to about how to work off the banana bread and Nutella that I’ll be consuming this week.