Forgotten memories: A black banana

One late September day in 2012 my labmate and I were heading home.  We sat next to each other on the bus and I had my bookbag on my lap.  As we were idly chatting, I fumbled around in the front mesh compartment of my bookbag, not really looking to find anything of importance.  Lo and behold, my fingers felt something flat and hard with a texture that I can't describe.  With no idea what laid in my bookbag, I pulled out a flattened black banana in front of everyone in the crowded bus.

When I first discovered this black banana I couldn't stop laughing.  Seriously, how long did this banana stay in my bag before it got to this blackened state?  I then remembered that a few weeks/months before this discovery, my bag had a strange smell that I couldn't identify nor could the source be found.  I remembered sniffing my bag inside and out, and couldn't find anything - I figured it was a residual smell of the many lunches I've carried in this bag.  Boy was I wrong!  I presume that even at that time the banana must've already turned black and camouflaged itself in my dark navy bookbag; I'd like to think I could've spotted this banana if it was till yellow...

Not only was this banana black as night, it was stiff as wood.  But then the mystery question... what happened to all the banana goo?  Presumably being in the front outermost of my bookbag this thing would've endured a lot of pressure, hence why it's so flattened... but where did all the banana inside go?  My bag was not covered in any banana residue, and neither did this thing...

My hypothesis on what happened: This was a banana I took from home to eat at school.  It must have been still under-ripe because I wouldn't have put it in my bookbag otherwise.  I forget to eat this piece of fruit and it goes unnoticed for the next few days.  Because I forget that there's a banana in the front of my bookbag, I haphazardly throw my bag any which way as I do normally.  This gradually puts pressure on the banana to flatten slowly without having the entire thing explode in my bag.  Eventually the slow process of adding pressure to it makes the banana completely flattened and dried, hence why I was able to detect some smell but not have any goo or mold in my bag.  As for how long it took for the banana to get that black, I have no idea.... weeks, months?  Who knows for how long I had it in my bag?

The disgust of what had just happened really didn't hit me until I went home.  My poor friend who was probably really disgusted with my discovery, as well as all the people on the bus who probably thought I was the biggest slob... I can only wish that I had made this discovery in the privacy of my own home without any witnesses.

As a measure of cruel and unusual punishment, I blindfolded H and challenged him to guess the black banana based on feel.  He was quite puzzled at the item until he got to the banana stem and immediately ripped off his blindfold to scream "WTF!"