This week I wasn’t buying any seam rippers even though maybe I should have because the one I bought last week is super dull and doesn’t cut a piece of thread as purported. But I was about town and happened across some banana implements that are…well, they just are.

For your consideration, the Banana Keeper and the Nana Saver — priced at $3.48 and $1.00, respectively.

Banana furniture

Instead of placing your bananas on any available surface, the Banana Keeper is a small plastic piece of furniture for your bananas. It allows them to hover vertically above your counter top instead of lying in repose. You hook your bananas on this device and they dangle there until you eat them or they turn black and rot off their hook because you weren’t really planning on eating them anyway.

The Nana Saver is a plastic clip the size and shape of half a banana. Clipping this apparatus on a half-eaten banana extends the useful life of your banana; you can save the uneaten half from going bad before you are ready to eat it. I can’t remember a time where I lamented the size of an average banana. Is this really a problem? Bananas are too big to eat in one sitting? Where have I been living?

Banana helmet

I always felt that humans had a deal with bananas: they don’t last very long and we accept that. I didn’t get the memo that our contract for acceptable banana behavior had changed. But this isn’t about bananas or the status of our Fruitilogical Agreement on Proper Fruit Conduct.

I know that Americans have the ability to eat a whole banana before its time is up. We live in a time of competitive eating contests being covered by ESPN. I looked on Google and the record for competitive hot dog eating was 68 hot dogs in 10 minutes. I don’t think many people aspire to that kind of gluttony, but probably people eat more than their recommended daily amount of hot dogs. I think that, as we transition into summer and the hot dog season, it would please me greatly for people to remember their bananas before they go bad and eat one instead of another hot dog.