A Scary Lesson About Bananas

It was morning.

That really says it all.  I mean, that statement could be a blog post in and of itself, am I right? Hate mornings.

So yeah, it was morning, aaaand {shocker} we were running LATE. Which makes it the perfect setting for Megan to not be able to find something. This time it was her sweat jacket.

Meg:  I can't find my jacket.

Me:  Did you check your backpack?

Meg:  It's not there.

This is when I should have asked, "Did you MOVE STUFF AROUND?!" But I figured, what's the point? So I opened her backpack, and WHAT do you suppose I found? BINGO. The jacket. So I pulled it out and laid it on a chair for her to grab on her way out the door ... should we ever get that far.

As I was putting the finishing touches on the girl's lunches, I called out to Meg ...

Me:  Do you want a banana in your lunch?

Meg:  No thanks. Besides, I think there's still one in my backpack.

Hmmm. Now when was the last time I sent a banana with Meg to school? One week ago? Two weeks? Nope ... pretty sure it's been longer than that.

Me:  There's STILL a banana IN YOUR BACKPACK?!

Meg: Yeah. It's all black and stuff.

You don't say.

I ran over to the backpack, hoping against all hope, that this dead and gone banana had not split open and gushed it's insides out onto everything.

I opened the backpack, where I had found a JACKET only moments earlier, and there on the bottom, camouflaged against the dark purple fabric was a super-duper-blackity-black-black banana ... STILL IN TACT, PRAISE THE LORD!!!

Me:  Megan, what a WASTE. If you don't want bananas in your lunch, just say so.

Meg:  Sorry, but it fell out of my lunch accidentally and then I forgot about it.

I reached in the backpack, and gingerly pulled out the forgotten fruit.

What happened next is something only seen in horror films or missionary jungle footage ...

As soon as my hand was clear of the backpack, a very large grey spider started to slowly crawl from the bottom where the banana (AND MY HAND) had just been, to the pack's opening at the top!!!

OH. MY. WORD.

I turned it upside down to shake it out onto the ground and cried, "Megan, LOOK!!"

Meg:  EWW!!! GET ME A NEW BACKPACK!!!

Me:  Don't be ridiculous. 

Meg:  I'm NOT taking that one to school after a SPIDER'S been in it!!

So I went to the closet and pulled out her backpack from last year, which was still in fine shape, and more importantly, SPIDER-FREE.

I returned to the scene just in time to hear ...

Henry:  So now you know what happens when you don't eat your banana!

Me:  Yeah! SPIDERS!! Spiders INSIDE YOUR BACKPACK!!!

She'll probably have nightmares for weeks, but some lessons are harsh like that.

Oh, and fellow moms ... feel free to share this story with anyone in YOUR house who doesn't eat the fruit YOU send to school with them. You're welcome.