Talking Bananas and the Whole Foods conundrum...

One of the things about living in Austin is that you experience a sort of diversity unique to Texas.  It is where the queens and kings of life collide and it is also the birthplace of so much that is truly an Austin original.

So last night while heading to my favorite macrobiotic restaurant for dinner I decided instead that I would head off to Whole Foods and pick up a few things that I needed and grab something to eat there.  Basket in hand, with my environmentally friendly Whole Foods grocery bag in tow, I wandered through the produce aisle trying to remember what if anything it was that I needed and then I spied to bananas.

Ah, the bananas - feeling very much a part of Groucho Marx at the moment, but I digress.  A banana is no longer just a banana any more.  And as I stood before the display and began to read all about the various types and their pedigrees, suddenly I was enveloped in a veritable verbal sea of banana propaganda.  You see, I had stood on the very spot that was right underneath a suspended cone of banana propaganda - it fell forth from it's own small black speaker right down on to my head.  It surrounded me and took me totally unawares and jump I did to a whole other spot to get out from under it's cacophony of words.  You see, I couldn't understand it since it had no context to reality whatsoever.

And then, someone who must have witnessed the whole event came over to ask me what had happened.  I explained the banana propaganda phenomenon to him and told him that I merely wanted a banana and had managed to get a lecture instead.  The spiel was still rolling and we both shook our heads and then I wandered off to find the organic frozen fruit.  What would happen next was anyones guess but with bananas in the basket, I felt safe for the moment.