I have a “first world” problem. It’s a problem that people in third world countries* would probably love to have because it involves an excess of food. Specifically, food that is purchased but not eaten before it goes bad.
But first I should tell you that I don’t really think it’s a problem, per say. Yes, I admit to buying fresh fruit and vegetables, and on rare occasions meat, that goes bad before it is consumed. Usually it’s a banana or two** from a bunch, a few inner stalks of celery, or a whole cucumber that gets buried in the crisper drawer and forgotten until it’s too late. That’s not too bad, right? Maybe you do it too?
Well, in Ben’s mind, when even a single banana has to be thrown away, it is more than a minor regret.
Nevermind that I do most of the grocery shopping and the two of us usually manage to eat a 4-or-5-banana-bunch within a couple days without incident. It’s not like I buy a bunch of bananas and think to myself, “these are going to smell great when they’re rotting on the countertop underneath a pile of unopened mail!”
Letting a single banana go to waste is apparently a Shameful Travestry. Worse than buying something because it’s cute, worse than stealing, worse than killing another human being. Each crime is a festering black wound on my body that would even make biblical lepers cringe. Each crime demonstrates my deep-seated desire to plunge us carelessly into financial ruin.
And that’s all information I get just from the red-hot look he gives me before vocalizing this little pet peeve of his! (It’s an impressive power, when you think about it.)
So. Guess who went grocery shopping early last week and bought a bunch of bananas? Ben. And guess who said he was going to eat that last banana when it was looking too brown and spotty for my taste? Ben. And guess who, a couple days ago when it was clear to me that The Rotting Banana was going to have to be thrown away, puffed up his chest and said “I’M GOING TO EAT IT DON’T THROW IT AWAY” and put it in the fridge? Ben and his annoying sidekick, Pride.
Tonight, Ben pulled out a frying pan and said he was going to make a Bananas Foster-ish dessert for himself with The Rotting Banana. I shook my head at the lengths he was going to avoid hypocrisy and went to my office to blog about this fiasco. A few moments later, he appeared in my doorway and said with a scrunched face, “fine, you win.”
Is it okay that I cackled a bit and was delighted by his willingness to admit his fallibility? And then blogged about it? I don’t blog with the express purpose of embarrassing my loving husband or pointing out his faults, but this time I just had to share my fruitful victory (HAR HAR!). I leave you with the state The Rotting Banana when Ben made the (wise) decision to finally toss it:
* Are there actually any countries considered “second world?” I can’t seem to think of any examples.
** Sometimes I’ll use the ripening-too-fast bananas to make banana bread, but I don’t always have the time or motivation. I don’t like wasting food either, really!
