The Banana Incident of '07

I had been working at Peliton for probably two weeks when I discovered Mary's aversion to bananas. All things banana-related caused Mary a wave of nausea, and she would have to leave the area. Instantly the wheels were turning: all I needed was a box of Runts, 15 minutes of her gone from her desk (with my prior knowledge preferred), and two accomplices--Tamara and Jon.

At first Operation George of the Jungle (I think?) was postponed due to a remarkable lack of Runts in the Denver Metro area. Two solid evenings were spent going through Targets, Wal*Marts, King Sooper's, and gas stations in an effort to find the seemingly evasive candies. At last, in the light of a scathingly brilliant idea, I asked a high school student working for minimum wage where to find them and procured a massive box. A side note, I went through the whole box and pulled out all of the bananas, placing them in a Ziploc baggie; distinct is my recollection of Tamara's disappointment at seeing the baggie, "Oh. I thought you were going to bring the whole box."

Step 2: Lure Mary away from her desk in order to proceed. With a spy in HR, all Jon and I had to do was wait for Tamara's call. Since patience is not one of my strong suits, I was practically pacing in my cubicle, full of excitement at my first totally awesome prank. (You know, I never did get around to messing with Jon's cubicle lighting.) Finally it came--the eagle had landed! Or rather, had left as the case may be. Stealthily Jon and I snuck over (translation: giggled obnoxiously the whole way) and proceeded to hide bananas everywhere--her pencil cup, in her drawers, all over her keyboard, on her chair--while Tamara changed her desktop picture to the perfect picture Jon found, and her new screen saver declared, "Mary, you drive us Bananas!" Taking a step back, I looked at the impish smiles on my new friends' (and cohorts) faces with a sense of accomplishment.

The last stage of any good prank is the anticipation of fulfillment. In this instance, I had no idea how long the meeting would last--and ended up having one myself. In the hopes that something had happened, I returned to my desk in the most out-of-the-way path possible to see everyone surrounding a very stunned woman.

Disbelief, shock, and slight disgust are probably the best way to describe the look on Mary's face. I felt a little guilty that we had invaded her space (even her files had received a little extra fake Potassium that afternoon), and we all removed as many bananas as we could find so the SNAFU could be returned to the controlled chaos that decorates most desks in HR.

Mary left Peliton six months after that incident, and it just now dawns on me that maybe the affection behind the banana-torture wasn't ever fully articulated. The legend did, however, live on, as Sue discovered another one while preparing the desk for the incoming.