The flight between Chicago's O'Hare and New York's Laguardia has long been the most unpleasant in America. It's almost always late. (The plane might pull out of the gate on time, but there's a line of 50 planes on the tarmac waiting to take off.) It's usually packed and it reeks. If I were to bottle the scent, I'd call it "Deep-dish Greasy". (Pronounced Greazy.)

That's why I was pleasantly surprised by my trip to Chicago this past week to tape NPR's Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me! I love doing this show, especially when I win - and when the flights are on time and only half-full, as they were this week.

The American Airlines flight attendants on flight 386 seemed reborn: easy laughs, sparkling smiles, a spring in their step. Like Watergate-era Braniff babes, but without the menace of hands grabbing at their asses. How happy did they seem? They offered me a lime twist for my sparkling water before I even asked. It was sheer joy ... until the end of my return flight.

I'd brought a banana on board with me, purchased at an O'Hare Starbucks. Bananas are easy. You can stow them in the pocket of the seat in front until you're ready to start peeling. Unless that pocket is jam packed, the banana should be able to sustain the squeeze and won't start oozing, even if the fruit is 75% water. (If you're still worried about creating a safe space for your banana, place a snapple bottle in the pocket to force it open - though that looks a little ghetto.)

When the pilot announced that we would begin our descent, I rushed to grab my banana in my left hand, broke the stem with my teeth, and stripped the peel with my right. (Yes, I peel from the stem down.) It would take me about three bites to wolf down the fruit. Just in time for Terry, the pixie-ish flight attendant assigned to collect trash.

"Garbage ... garbage ... garbage," she cooed. Terry had a great tan and a short sassy haircut. (She looked a lot like a blond Catherine Keener.) She was only three rows away, sauntering towards us, looking from left to right, calling out to passengers on the beat. "Garbage ... garbage ... yes, I'll take the newspapers..."

I'm hardwired to please flight attendants. This dates from a family trip to California when I was 11, and we flew Western Airlines from Washington, D.C. to San Francisco. I was dressed in my tan Pierre Cardin suit my parents had purchased from Woodward and Lothrop in Friendship Heights. (My grandmother worked there and got us a 20% discount.) I was so excited to fly that every time time our "stewardess" asked a question, I'd answer, "Yes, please, thank you, ma'am!"

Finally she burst out, "You are so ... polite for a young man!" Oh, I felt so validated.

Twenty-seven years later I was still that young boy, swallowing my banana as fast as I could, so that I could give Terry my garbage in time for landing - and make her happy. It wasn't as easy as I thought: the edible portion (also known as the "finger') was a teensy bit fibrous (Starbucks bananas are never ripe enough), so I began chewing frantically.

The clock was ticking. Terry was at our row now, facing the other direction, collecting a Jamba Juice cup. She was about to turn to us. That's when it occurred to me: I was in a window seat - next to a nice Chicago couple on their way to the U.S. Open. Terry wasn't going to reach over them with the garbage bag so I could drop my peel in. Instead she and I would be making a hand-to-hand transfer.

In a split-second decision, I took a final bite, right to the base of the banana's spine, then grabbed the "butt" of the banana (the hard exterior knot opposite the stem) and held it from above in my right hand, the peel strips dangling downward. I was conscious that Terry might not want contact with the moist interior of my peel. Offering the peel's smooth exterior seemed like the best, most considerate, handover option.

I reached over, across the man in the middle seat. But Terry didn't make eye contact.

"Excuse me, Ma'am," I said.

Again, Terry didn't make eye contact.


Above: I offer Terry my banana peel. Why won't she respond?

"Ma'am," I said. But Terry had moved past. That's when the man next to me, who'd shrunk back from my peel, handed me a cocktail napkin.

"Here, try this," he said with an uncomfortable smile. I immediately understood the implication: My peel was dirty. He thought I should wrap it in the napkin. Never mind that I'd offered Terry the outside, which had probably been fondled by hundreds of people - from pickers in Costa Rica, to truckers in Laredo, to colorists at the Starbucks banana outlet!

There just wasn't time to argue. We were descending fast and Terry was getting ready to dump her trash and strap herself into a jump seat in the rear of the cabin. I unfurled the napkin and rolled up my sad yellow garbage.

"Ma'am! Please."

Terry suddenly could hear me. (Well how about that?) She turned around, strode back up the aisle, grabbed my shrouded peel, and unceremoniously dropped it in her bag.

"I'm sorry," she said with a shudder. "I have real banana peel issues." She splayed the fingers of her free hand, to emphasize disgust, then disappeared.


Above: "The Shroud of Chiquita." Terry accepts my offering.

My mind reeled: Had I violated banana peel protocol? Had I offered her something unhygienic? Even if I had pinched the butt of the peel from below and offered it to her with the peel strips draping down, the gunky lining exposed, would that have been dirty? I don't think so.


Above: How I could have handed over the peel. I chose not to.

The fact is, a banana peel is not an apple core. No CSI sleuth could find a trace of saliva on any part of the yellow remnant, with the possible exception of the nub left at the base of the spine. Surely Terry wouldn't have had the same reaction to an orange peel.

Sorry, but she acted like I was handing her a used condom!

In fact, I wonder if the shape of the banana - and the transformation that the peel undergoes - is the root of Terry's (and I'm guessing many others') "banana peel issues." Could the banana peel represent a marriage that began promisingly and ended virtually sexless? (Then again, don't most marriages begin like an unripe banana before turning to flaccid peels? Isn't that why married couples have kids?)

Do you have "banana peel issues"? Does the peel freak you out? And is there a banana peel protocol you follow? What are your thoughts on and associations with banana peels? Please share them with us!!!!

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In other news, my next-door neighbors have set a new record for getting baked. They've been smoking pretty non-stop for the last four days. Yesterday I saw my other neighbor, from the other side, out front of our building.

"Can you believe how much those guys smoke?" I asked this other neighbor. (Super nice Israeli guy who plays the guitar.)

"Yeah, we smell it all the time," he said. "But we thought it was you."

Obviously he doesn't read my blog.