It's Bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S

Quite unexpectedly, my friend Alli is coming to visit next weekend. Turns out she has a client meeting for work in my city, so she is going to make a stop to come visit me in ugly yardland. Yippee! I don't have anything more to say, really, on that, except to say that thinking about the impending visit makes me do a foot-to-foot exotic Does-She-Have-To-Pee-Pee dance, which I'm sure is quite alarming to onlookers. I know this news is infinitely exciting to me, but doesn't really have any bearing on all ya'll out there, and so the entertainment value of this post so far is severely lacking. To make up for this, I shall tell you the following Alli anecdote. My apologies, in advance, go out to her for what I am about to say.

When we were in high school, oh boy, how shall I put this? Alli had this ridiculously sexually charged friendship with this dude, let's call him Shekky. They never really DID anything sexual. The point was they wanted to. Inside each of their virginal hearts, they BURNED for each other. It was palpable. They tried to hide it within the bounds of their friendship. They were JUST FRIENDS, you understand. Totally platonic friends who don't at all notice each other in that way. So they would hang out, and pal it up, and act all innocent about the whole thing, but under it all, this unconsummated yearning built up and built up, with nowhere to go. It just had to be expressed. Somehow, some way.

The way that it started getting expressed was through jokes. Dirty ones. Now I know that all teens like the dirty jokes so maybe this doesn't seem like a very good way to express undercover tingly nether region feelings. I mean, I didn't have a platonic but secretly yummy friend that I was yearning for but yet I still thought it was hilarious to utter the number 69 no matter what the occassion. That's just teenagers, right? Yeah, but in this case, it was more than that. The dirty jokes between Alli and Shekky were getting out of control. Which brings us to the notes.

Shekky would write Alli these "joke" notes. Ha ha, just for a laugh, he didn't really mean any of it, it's just funny! Except, oh yeah, oops, the note just happens to be Filthy. There was this one note that he wrote her, and the subject of the note was how he wanted to put Alli in a giant banana split. Naked. And all of the things that he wanted in the banana split with her. You know, the whipped cream, the chocolate sauce, all of it. Ha ha, really funny, just kidding!

So what does Alli do with this banana split note? She reads it, and then leaves it, opened up, on her kitchen table. I don't know why she did that. Was she so flushed and atwitter from the note that she just had to leave it somewhere? Or did she feel guilty about the note and somehow want to be caught with it? Because that's what happened. Her mom found the note, you guys. OY VEY.

When I think about this even now, a chill goes down my spine. Alli's mom is not one to be trifled with. She was, when we were kids, what one would call a mother bear. Infinitely loving, but a straight shooter. She wasn't taking crap from anyone, least of all us kids. So, for her to be the one to find that note, where seemingly innocent Shekky was talking about sliding around a human size banana split with her daughter. Oh. God. Someone's head was going to roll.

Here's where it gets so fascinating to me. Alli's mom did not freak out. She did not yell. She did not forbid Alli to see Shekky. In fact, she didn't do anything. She left that note right there, and didn't say a word. None of us knew that she had seen it.

One day, after school, we were all hanging out at Alli's house, having a grand old time as usual. I wish I could remember who all was there, but I can't remember. I just remember Alli's mom walking in and saying hi to all of us, and when she spotted Shekky among the gaggle of teens, this is what she did.

Her: Hiya, Shekky. How are you?
Him: Fine, Mrs. J.
Her: You hungry?
Him: No, I'm good Mrs. J.
Her: You sure? Not hungry for a banana split? I know how much you like those.
Him, and Alli, and those of us who knew about the note, bugged out and froze.
Him: (hoping against hope that it's not what it seems) Um, no, thanks, that's ok.
Her: You sure? No whip cream? No chocolate sauce?
Him: No. Thanks.

I can't imagine his embarrassment. To be called out, in front of Alli, in front of her friends, by Alli's MOM. How awesome is that?

I don't know if Alli got a talking-to about that note after this happened. What fascinates me about this episode is that Alli's mom knew, somehow, that that note wasn't really indicative of what her daughter or Shekky were really doing. Was that mother's intuition? Did she just know her daughter that well? I never could figure out how she knew that she didn't have to go ballistic about this. The mysteries of parenting, I guess.

I wonder if Shekky was off banana splits for good after that.

Kiss the rings, I'm out.
Librarian Girl