Banana me...

This might just be the most hilarious thing that has ever happened to me, and I almost fell off my bike laughing when it happened (although it was slightly less amusing as I was carrying my bike home…). In any case, it all started out one not so fine and not particularly sunny day when I, in a dearth of pretty much anything edible whatsoever in my little monk’s cell, determined to go grocery shopping on my way back from an appointment I was convinced I had but actually didn’t. I managed to collect the essentials (or ‘the usual’, as I pretty much always buy the same things…), pay, and in true German style pack everything in my backpack before the checker was done checking (if you’ve ever been to Aldi and in danger of having your purchases more or less pushed off the counter for not being fast enough, you’ll know what I mean). Everything fit except the bananas and the baguette; I had managed to stow the heavy, indestructible objects a the bottom of my backpack, the box of fresh figs on top (PS, for those of you in Switzerland, currently ‘en action’ at Migros this week), and in true German fashion had even brought my own plastic shopping bag in case it didn’t all fit in the backpack (again, veterans of deutsche Discountmärkte will know that additional bags cost money). Under the weight of my several kilos of müsli, coffee, carrots, milk, and god knows what else I bought I stagger outside, unlock my bike, push the bike across the street so I am set up to start riding in the direction, jump on, start riding and…

…that’s when it happens. I often boast of being able to transport much of anything on a bicycle, as if dangling all manner of baggage and accoutrements looking like I’m carrying all my earthly possessions in one go is some kind of virtue despite looking utterly ridiculous. So I figure one backpack, one plastic shopping bag would be no problem. And it usually isn’t: ask me about transporting a flat of strawberries, several watermelons, or bottles of wine and we can talk about ‘difficult’. In any case, I start off, and in the first five or so yards as I am gaining equilibrium, the bag dangling from my handlebars keeps touching the spokes, generally just making a terrible noise and damaging the bag for which I at one point paid money. All of the sudden, pendulating as it was, the bag suddenly swung into the spokes with enough force that the bag was essentially grabbed and swallowed by the front wheel like a wood chipper, as my bike manages somehow, in the space of about 8.2 seconds, to puree five bananas and half a baguette before I could get stopped and sort it all out. Unfortunately, this had already broken a bracket on my fender and managed to wedge the thingie holding on to the bracket under the front wheel, meaning I had to literally carry the bicycle—dripping banana—home in heels.

LATER THAT DAY: I did manage to fix my bike, but it involved taking off the brakes to get to the fender to get to the bracket to put it all back together again. Go me. And I have no bananas left ☹