Blue collar comedy comes to Safeway

[osodecanela]

Early last month I was at the local Safeway, to pick up a couple of items for the following morning. Baby bananas were on special and as I do like the flavor, a grabbed a bunch. Mansana bananas they're called. They always make me smile, as they remind me of Pop. My father, he should rest in peace, used to laugh when ever he saw them. Insisted they were for people who couldn't make up their mind between bananas and grapes.

Anyway, I finished my shopping and headed to the checkout, where Linda, sweet woman that she is, stood waiting. The tiny bananas stopped her. Holding them up, she wrinkled her forehead and asked, "Saba banana?"

"No, Manasana banana."
"Mansana banana?"
"Um h, mansana banana."

She cased thru the produce list to find their code and could not. After a minute, the line was growing. It was 9 pm and she was the only one working check out. "Try apple banana," I volunteered.

"Apple banana?"
"That's what manasana means in Spanish."
"Oh! Ah, there it is."

She rang them up and as she bagged things into my canvas bag she asked if they tasted any different and I told her I thought they did.

"Do you eat them just like this?"
"No dear, you peel them first."

She rolled her eyes. They guy right behind me, one of her co-workers added, "here's your sign."