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Volume I
Under the Peel
by Beth Lisick
A couple of years ago I was in need of some cash. My friend Chris (aka The FruitGuy) suggested that I dress up in the banana costume. Twenty-five dollars an hour didn’t seem so bad. That first day of banana-dom turned into a story that appeared in my book: Everybody Into the Pool, under the title “The Lowly Hustle”, and included details from a few other odd jobs I had done to supplement my income as a writer. The banana story is still one of my favorites because I can’t ever remember trying so hard to explain why I had chosen to do something. (And if you’ve read the book, you know I’ve chosen to do a few things in my life that would certainly get me crucified on Fox News.)
There was just something so compelling about that first banana job that I continue to take work as the FruitGuys Banana to this day, confounding my husband, my friends, my literary agent, and book editors. My four year old son gets it, though. He is totally down with his mom being a banana.
Now for a visualization exercise, just try to get here with me. Imagine what it would feel like, right this minute, to walk away from your computer and slip into a large, squishy banana costume. Your arms go through two cuts on the sides, the tip of the banana juts up over your head, and for your face, an oval hole that is perfectly face-sized. Your legs and butt stick out from a hole in the bottom, and the foam-filled banana curve arcs out in front of you. It’s a little cumbersome, but you get used to it pretty quick. Next you frontload your pouch with fresh banana booty to hand out, and now for the difficult part: You walk out your door. You are now a banana.
The first thing you need to do is throw your vanity out, quickly before you catch a glimpse of yourself in a reflective surface. Then I find it’s best to immediately start pretending that I am someone else. More specifically, someone else who is walking down the street and seeing the banana for the first time. I ask myself: If I were that 49 year old computer programmer with a long gray ponytail and relaxed-fit khakis walking down Montgomery Street eating a cinnamon roll and carrying a monogrammed insulated lunch bag from L.L. Bean, what would I like to see the banana do? My first move is a simple one. I smile. Boy, do I smile. I slap on a grin like nobody’s business because it is astounding how quickly you can get people to smile back at you. (This is also an experiment you can do while wearing your street clothes, and I encourage it, but some days it’s much more difficult to “get it up” for such behavior.) What I’ve found, though, is that seeing a cheery banana walking down the street makes most people pretty darn happy.
And still, there are others who are not so impressed with the banana. There are those who prefer to taunt and tease the banana as she goes innocuously about her business, but I’ll leave those stories for another entry.
Volume II
"I'm not always the Banana Lady..."
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