The Bananaing

I have stories to tell you about Texas, but those can wait. Today, I need to talk about a banana.

Pranks come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes, it’s a seven-foot-tall taxidermy bear that shows up uninvited at your wedding reception. Other times, it’s a piece of fruit somewhere it’s not supposed to be.

I’ve written about my brother Arthur many times in the past, although each time, I claim it’s the first because I fail to remember all the newsletters where I mentioned him before. I keep forgetting his fake name, so when I search for him, he doesn’t come up. I should really make a spreadsheet to keep track of my lies. Just to clear things up, this is Arthur standing in a sinkhole. No banana for scale.

Arthur is currently in his fifth year of college because he switched majors and the educational system aggressively punishes anyone who changes their mind. God forbid you don’t know exactly what you want to do for the rest of your life when you’re eighteen. Thanks to covid, he’s spent part of his college experience at home and part at the dorm, where he apparently made friends. This was a surprise to everyone in my family. There’s a matrix of intelligence vs social skills, and the seven Breakwell siblings fall on all parts of the grid. Believe it or not, I have mediocre intelligence (okay, totally believable) and high social skills (there’s the implausible part). Arthur is on the opposite quadrant of the graph. His intelligence is maxed out, while his social skills are detectable only with an electron microscope. He got a full ride to college that included room and board and extended to his fifth year. He also had a roommate who he never spoke to and who changed dorm assignments after the first semester. Or maybe Arthur never actually had a roommate. The effect was the same either way. When he talks, he says a million words a minute because that’s how fast he thinks, and also because he doesn’t want to waste his time talking to you. Better to get all the words out in one big burst without taking a breath. Gaps between words are for the slow.

It was with considerable surprise, then, that I received an email purporting to be from Arthur’s friend. Apparently Arthur had mentioned that he had a famous brother, or a brother who was a public disgrace. The exact wording is unimportant. The point is, the friend, who’s name I can’t remember so I’ll call the Puppet Master, wanted to prank Arthur. I was immediately game. My mind raced with what well-dressed dead animal I could impose on Arthur’s life. Then I read the rest of the email. The Puppet Master didn’t want taxidermy at all. He asked, instead, for a banana, covertly inserted under Arthur’s pillow. That was a bit of a head scratcher.

On the surface, “Behold! Unexpected fruit,” isn’t really much of a prank. The logical reaction is to simply eat the banana. That’s especially likely with Arthur, who’s a vegetarian, as opposed to me, who eats ninety-five percent meat. Together, we balance out the universe. But there was a deeper meaning to the prank. Apparently, Arthur and the Puppet Master had been placing bananas in unusual places for each other to find throughout the school year. Now that it was summer vacation, Arthur thought he was safe. He refused to tell the Puppet Master where he lived both because he didn’t want to get bananaed and because he’s Arthur. Just because he has a friend doesn’t mean he actually wants to hang out with him. It was the Puppet Master’s sole mission to destroy that sense of security. That’s why he reached out to me.

Despite his best effort, the Puppet Master hadn’t been able to find Arthur’s address on the internet. Kids today aren’t as good of hackers as they think. He contacted me as plan B. I’m definitely a good partner for shenanigans, but I wasn’t ideally located. I live a little over an hour from my parents’ house, and I wasn’t going to drive there and back just to move around nature’s yellow dong. Also, my sudden presence would be highly suspicious. I never drop in for no reason (Let’s face it: No one is excited to see me.), and I didn’t have any pretext in the near future to be there. Even when I am in town, I often go entire visits without seeing Arthur. He’s always cloistered in his room in front of his computer playing games or solving all the problems of the world. Mostly just the game part. If I walked in there, I’d be detected immediately. I lacked the skills to pull off this job by myself. Instead, I brought in a third conspirator: my mom.

I messaged her, and she was in. There were now three people working on the mildest prank of all time. She said she wouldn’t have an easy time getting a banana under his pillow, either, since Arthur never, ever leaves his room. He’s like a dragon guarding a treasure hoard, but his treasure is just being left alone. It’s the exact opposite of “the friends we made along the way.” She made it through the entire first day without a single opportunity to place a cavendish in a slightly unexpected place. I reported the failure up the chain to the Puppet Master. We’d have to try again on day two.

On the second day, we were met with sudden success. Arthur slipped up and went for a jog. Exercise is always a mistake. Mom swept in and delivered the payload. Then she messaged me, “The eagle has landed.” It was done. I forwarded news of her success to the Puppet Master. Then I waited for the fallout with bated breath. Not really. I almost immediately forgot about the entire thing. Very little of my day is occupied by thinking about bananas. Actually, very little of my day is occupied by thinking in general.

Days later, I got a second unexpected email. The Puppet Master sent me the results of the scheme. I thought Arthur would be mildly surprised by the banana. I was wrong. That banana rocked Arthur’s entire world. The Puppet Master sent me the following screen caps of their text conversation.