Bananas.

So far this has been my week to blog about stuff seen while walking the dog -- hardly the first time. Today we have:

Ah, the humble banana peel, natural wrapper of delicious fruit, staple of silent and cartoon comedies. Just by the side of the road near my suburban home. The latest in a series.

I started to notice these gifts from the litterbugs popping up along the road a year or so ago and I couldn't understand why. Surely the kids today must be aware that the whole smoking-banana-peel thing was a joke, right? What other nefarious purposes would these children (for usually littering is done by young drivers) be putting bananas to? The mind reels.

Naturally it is a bad thing to throw banana peels around. Yes, they are biodegradable, but like all garbage they attract vermin. Plus, someone could slip!

A couple of years ago Mental Floss had a story on how banana peels became a comedy prop. It seems like a natural, as it is slippery and funny (even the word "banana" is funny). But other things are slippery; why the banana peel?

In a nutshell, bananas became an import fruit in the middle of the 19th century and, New York sanitation being what it was, the streets were soon littered with peels. Horrible injuries and -- oh, humanity -- comedy gold ensued: "Since the beginning of the 20th century, slipping on a banana peel has been a fixture in physical comedy. The slipping-and-falling gag is widely accepted to have originated on the Vaudeville stage." I'm glad the article mentioned Woody Allen's banana peel gag in the futuristic comedy Sleeper.

Speaking of futuristic stuff: The kids today claim to be all about the environment, and they ought to know that a company is planning to turn banana peels into clothing. So perhaps they should look into recycling their peels instead of heaving them out the car window.

I'm still not sure that the kids aren't doing some illicit banana-related activities in their vehicles, but I think they may just be eating the bananas. It's still an odd thing, though. I couldn't figure out why they would even have bananas on their evening jaunts.

"Hey, let's go to the bar and try to get in with fake ID." 

"Okay, let me get my bananas and we'll go." 

Didn't make sense.

It turns out that they may just be impulse purchases. The gas station down the street now sells bananas along with the usual snack crap at the register. Worse, the gas station that just opened less than a mile away is also selling bananas. I'd have thought it was a fig leaf, like the "health halo" of McDonald's selling salads, but it turns out to be popular. And the peels wind up on my block.

Thanks, gas stations, for reintroducing the injurious effects of the lowly banana peel. You'll be hearing from my lawyers as soon as I step on one.