Banana Split Inflation

Last Thursday we visited the soda fountain at Don's Pharmacy on Thursday to have a banana split that had caught Brenda's eye a few days earlier. With great certainty and resolve I ordered two banana splits. The waitress sighed, looked at me, and said "You don't want to do that." Another customer exclaimed "Don't do it!" (Gulp!). So I said "Well how about one banana split between the two of us?" That was OK.

The banana split was brought out and I had never seen anything like it in my life. It was huge. It seemed like all eyes were on us. One customer took a photo with her own camera. I mumbled that the my recollection of banana splits at Walgreen's drug store in the early 1960's was a more modest affair where you could actually see the banana.

While we mined our way through the cream, syrups, nuts, and mountain of ice cream looking for the banana we got steady stream of banana split stories. The Japanese seem to have a particularly strong appetite for ice cream. One tiny Japanese tourist wolfed down a hamburger then followed it up by eating an entire banana split. Another group of Japanese had banana splits then were seen later in downtown Port Townsend having ice creams.

Brenda and I were not able to quite finish our banana split, though we got close. When we left we were "ice creamed" out, had a light meal that night, and still don't feel like ice cream. (Actually, I've put myself on a diet, so some good may have come out of it.)