The case of the missing Bananas

We have in our family a little girl that loves to pack. She isn't what you call a light packer either. I guess she comes by that honestly, I don't think I have ever been accused of that either.

Megan likes to pack for any event, even just going to town or to church. She and Mara have a bunch of purses and tote bags that she loves to pull out and fill with stuffed animals, dolls, craft items, who knows what all. There are many times that I need to take stuff places, for instance craft stuff for class at church or food for fellowship dinner and when Megan sees me "packing" then she really gets in the act and packs a bunch too. I will go out to the van to find the front seat just loaded with her bags.

Anyway on to the story. Just one month ago (on the 15th) was the funeral of our dear friend Opal. It was a very busy day at our house as I also had a wedding to do flowers for so the morning of the funeral I was getting flowers ready and getting food packed up for the lunch after the funeral. To be very honest other than helping the kids get dressed appropriately, they were rather on their own.

At breakfast I had a bunch of bananas sitting on the table to be eaten if desired but nobody did and off we went to the funeral (my dear husband delivered the wedding flowers for me!). When we got to the church building we unloaded the stuff for lunch and all went in. Once in Megan wanted to go back outside and said something about bananas. I wasn't paying to much attention to her but said she needed to stay in and that we hadn't brought any bananas.

Fast forward to later at home. I was looking for a snack and thought of the bunch of bananas. Where were they? I couldn't find them anywhere. Aha! Maybe that is why Megan was talking about them. I looked in the van. Not there. Did Megan get them out after the funeral? Maybe they were at the church building. I looked the next day but didn't see them anywhere. I figured maybe she put them somewhere outside and decided not to worry about them.

Fast forward a week or so. I was in the girls walk in closet and their was this faint fruity smell. What was it? Is it bananas? "Mara, I think you had better clean out your closet." So Mara cleaned it like most 9 year olds clean. No bananas. We forget about it.

Fast forward to last week. "Mara, your closet smells like banana bread! Do you remember those missing bananas? Do you think....?" "Please clean your closet really thoroughly!"

"Sorry Mom, no bananas."

At this point I really should have taken the time to help thoroughly clean as a Mom can sometimes clean a little better than a 9 year old but I was a little busy so....

This week on Tuesday, exactly one month after the funeral, I went in their closet and it smelled bad! Not like banana bread anymore this was yucky, rotten bananas! It was cleaning time!!

Out came everything and as I was moving the shoe rack which held the bags on the top shelf a swarm of fruit flies fluttered up to meet me. I do believe we are finding the location! Sure enough, in a bag which was underneath other bags was a black soft mess of very old bananas! The missing bananas were found and they quickly got deposited in the trash!

*In case you were wondering why we didn't get Megan's assistance in finding them in the first place, I think we tried. Often when we ask Megan to show us where something is (which we greatly suspect she has mislocated) we usually get led on a wild goose chase going inside, outside, upstairs, downstairs and on and on, all the while she appears to be very confident that we will run across it any moment.

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