I brought a banana to work yesterday and, when I finished it, the peel was lying on my desk. For some reason I found myself staring at it, wondering whether that old TV trope about slipping on a banana peel had any accuracy. I thought about throwing it on the floor next to the break room, and then sitting back and observing. The scientific method and all.
That seemed a little mean-spirited, even though I thought it highly improbable that someone would actually slip on a banana peel. I’ve never seen it happen, except to Wile E. Coyote (and let’s face it, that bastard had it coming).
But, I reasoned, there are a lot of things I have never seen with my own eyes. The sinking of the Titanic. A no-hitter in baseball. The aurora borealis. That doesn’t make them any less real, unless you’re a conspiracy theorist. Something I am not, unless you count the government covering up the existence of UFOs.
The truth is out there, guys.
In any case, I decided to turn to the internet to see if there’s any evidence supporting the idea that banana peels are slippery. And, what do you know? It’s true! According to Smithsonian Magazine, a reputable source if ever there was one, banana peels are especially slippery due to the polysaccharide molecules in the peel. Another article in Science Direct states that slipping on a banana peel “is not only a gag seed but also a genuinely tribological phenomenon” due to a significantly lower frictional coefficient (fr = Fr/N for the math geeks) than other common objects, one that is similar to well-lubricated surfaces.
This was all pretty compelling stuff, but I still wasn’t 100% convinced. I decided to dig a little more deeply and turn to two of the brightest scientific minds in history for final confirmation. That’s right: Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, aka MythBusters.
“Adam has definitively proven that banana peels are slippery,” Jamie concedes. That’s good enough for me!
We’re gradually settling into our new house this week. Needless to say, it’s not a difficult adjustment, though I’m still in the habit of asking Tara whether she needs the bathroom before I shower (we had to share a single bathroom in the apartment). I also keep thinking the walk-in closet in the master bedroom is an en suite bathroom, because that’s exactly where ours was located in the Rapid City house. Plus, we have two other regular closets in there. We may, in fact, convert it to an en suite someday, but that’s way down the line.
It’s been weird not painting every night. We actually have time to kick back and watch a little TV now, which feels like a luxury. This is not to say we haven’t been working; lots of unpacking and organizing still, mainly in the kitchen. The majority will have to wait until the flooring and carpets are installed next month, hence the downtime. I did replace Dick and Carol’s thermostat with a shiny new Nest learning thermostat. We had one in Rapid City and loved it, and we get a rebate from the local energy company for installing smart appliances.
One thing we have learned is, it gets dark here at night. Really dark. You can’t see much once the sun goes down, especially on clear nights. It took me a couple of days to figure out why: there are no streetlights here. All part of the rural experience, I suppose. I’m not complaining!
By the way, I love my new office so much, I wish I could work from home every day.
Gotta jam. I picked up a paint roller for the first time in eight days this afternoon. All the upstairs bedrooms and the living room and dining room looked great, but the hallway was dirty, dingy, and white. Figured it was high time I fixed that! Just about time for the second coat…
Mark My Words 
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