Beware of Bananas! – Feb. 1930

Does anyone else think that it's almost impossible to buy a really good-tasting banana these days?

I've pretty much given up finding a good one. Even though they might look very nice (like the stock photo above), they either have no flavor at all, are too hard in the middle even when ripe, or – worst of all – when peeled, they reveal unsightly black bruises and are rotten in spots. Yuck.

But at least you don't have to worry about finding a tarantula in with your bunch of bananas, unlike a grocer's wife in Wellington back in February 1930.

I found the story in Looking Back on Lorain County (1978) by Ernie Henes. He wrote, "A tarantula, the venomous spider that brings instant death to the victim it bites, was found by Mrs. T. M. Pfeiffer in her husband's grocery in Wellington on Saturday evening, Feb. 8, 1930.

"She had cut a bunch of bananas from a stalk and wanted one more. When she lifted the last bunch preparatory to cutting it off, she saw the spider and screamed. Her husband captured the insect and kept it in a glass container for several days. 

"The spider was about the size of a saucedish when its legs were stretched out. It was minus four of its 10 feet, indicating that it had been seen and attacked before. The lack of these feet may be the reason it did not jump when uncovered."

I don't think that a tarantula's bite actually causes instant death (unless the person dies from fright, like I would). I wonder how they stretched out the legs to measure it? (On second thought, I'd rather not know.)

The Lorain Journal included a short version of the story in its Feb. 11, 1930 edition.

Anyway, the possibility of finding a tarantula mixed in with the bananas is one more reason for me to dislike them.

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I probably should like bananas more than I do. Mom bought them all the time when we were kids. She used to whittle slices onto our cereal once in a while. She made banana cream pies, banana bread, etc. 

Mom even bought us a banana-flavored cereal called Wackies one time. Remember? It was the wack-wack-wackiest!

But we didn't like it. Other kids didn't either, and the cereal didn't remain on the market for very long.

These days, I still buy bananas once in a while. I've been told that Discount Drug Mart bananas are the best. The point of purchase sign above the display said they're from Costa Rica (which I've visited once) so I gave them a try.

They're okay. At least they don't tarantulas mixed in with them. Pura Vida!