Monday, February 27, 2006

bananas rich in association

Lately I’ve been eating a lot of bananas.

My grandma sent me e-mail containing a list of nutritional facts about the banana. I seem to have deleted the message by mistake or I would include it here. At any rate, the banana seems to be good for just about everything. What I remember: regulating mood (here, here! let’s hope so!), sharpening brain function (hot damn!), and tempering a hangover (bring it on!), a lot of vitamins B.

I eat the bananas at my desk at work. People look into my office as they walk by and suddenly I feel like a dirty girl exposed, like I’m sitting there, boobs falling out the top of my shirt (if I had the kind of boobs that do this) and thighs exposed, making gestures with my tongue, when really I’m just trying to enjoy my healthy banana.

The banana lends itself to easy metaphor and innuendo as it is, but I wonder if it might be an earlier association twined up in my inflated image. Once upon a time, while trying to open a banana, I said to the guy I was dating, "I am not very good at peeling bananas." He offered to teach me how to handle the banana.

Is that why I see speech balloons above the heads of passersby (Cock! Cock! And look what she’s doing with it!)? Maybe.

Two other objects are all twined up in personal association in my mind, each based on utterance from someone else.

The Sharpie. Someone once told me he had fantasies about poking Sharpies into his butt. Since then, I can not hear Sharpie without imagining it as a butt-toy.

Batteries. Once I said to my friend, "I need to get batteries." He prodded, "For a vibrator?" This same friend made the same connection with regard to another girl at a different time. Since then, when I hear batteries, the first image in my head is a vibrator.

I suppose we are all formed by associations, some of which are easily trackable and some of which are not. What a rich package of bold loops and color-code we all must be.

7 Comments:

Blogger Benjamin said...

We don't have Sharpies in England, but I can see the guy's point.

Your gran has e-mail! Cool.

Keep 'em peeled x

10:59 AM  
Blogger Benjamin said...

Sorry x

7:39 PM  
Blogger Sara said...

No need for sorry, Mr Pun.

Sometimes I forget how cool it is my grandma has e-mail. Not only that--she's pretty tech-savvy for a woman her age.

7:35 AM  
Blogger Benjamin said...

Thank you x

3:53 PM  
Blogger kim said...

He offered to teach you how to handle a banana? That's like offering to teach you to drive stick shift! Ha. My grandmother once forced me to eat a banana and I spit it on the floor because I hated it so much. Another of my grandmas can use email too, which is great, although oddly my mother is very tech retarded.

11:59 AM  
Blogger Nigel G Mitchell said...

That's funny. Because I imagine it would be hard for a woman to eat a banana without some perv getting ideas. But what kind of freak does that with Sharpies? If some guy told me that, I'd avoid him next time I saw him walking down the hall.

7:35 PM  
Blogger Sara said...

Kim-My mom is not tech-savvy either. It must have skipped a generation all around.

Monkey Migraine-I can't remember who it was with the Sharpies. I've narrowed it down to two people: one, a passing acquaintance; the other, a very close friend. Maybe it's for the better I don't remember.

1:21 PM  

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