While visiting our local Senior Center in downtown Pagosa Springs, I noticed a rack of informational brochures offering various kinds of advice and information aimed especially at senior citizens.
Most of the informational brochures dealt with healthcare and insurance premiums, or inexpensive tropical vacations, or herbs to help improve your memory. Those types of ‘senior’ concerns.
It was purely accidental, that I happened to be in the Senior Center, and noticing those brochures. I don’t consider myself a senior citizen, and I hope I never do. As far as herbs to improve your memory, I rarely have trouble remembering things, and when I do, I promptly forget about it.
And living here in beautiful Pagosa Springs, the only time I think about tropical vacations is during the fall, winter and spring. And sometimes in the summer.
But one of the brochures definitely caught my youthful eye.
“IS THERE A KILLER LURKING IN YOUR HOUSE?”
I had never thought of a banana as a killer.
I do, in fact, have a bunch of bananas sitting on my kitchen counter, and I will say, they look pretty darn innocent. Would anyone accuse them of “lurking”? I hardly think so. More like, “relaxing”. Just calmly waiting to turn brown.
I also happen to have a basket of yams, which exhibit similar behavior. They lay around all day, doing nothing much at all. Quietly. Completely non-threatening.
I’ve never walked into my kitchen, fearing my fruits and vegetables.
Maybe I should be more watchful.
But since I’ve been alerted, I have made note of certain fearful things in my refrigerator. The tub of Cool Whip, for example. Have you ever read the ingredients that go into Cool Whip?
If there is a killer lurking in my kitchen, it must surely be the Cool Whip.
And in the back of one of my kitchen cabinets, I believe there’s a package of Twinkies, lurking. That package is probably two years old. At least. But have you noticed, Twinkies never get stale, or moldy. Our amazing food industry is able to make semi-edible products that can sit on a shelf for two years and not get moldy.
How do they do that?
Makes you wonder, what’s dangerous, and what’s not.
Actually, the alarmist “Killer Lurking” brochure did offer some thoughtful advice, for seniors who have a habit of leaving banana peels on the floor.
I guess that’s the kind of thing you do, when you get old. (I’m not a senior, so I wouldn’t know.)
But we can’t blame the bananas. We’re the ones killing ourselves. With Twinkies.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.