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There I was at the grocery store. Figured I'd buy some organic bananas; I do that every couple weeks or so. They were all green, but I figured they'd ripen in the next couple days.

A week later, they were still solid green. Someone asked me if they were plantains, but I don't think they are; they're the size and shape of regular bananas.

Another week later, some parts of the skins were gradually beginning to turn brown—not the dark brown of a rotten banana, but a rich toasted color like lightly roasted coffee. Everywhere except the brown areas, the skins were still solid green.

Another week later, most of the green was gone on two of the four bananas, though none of them had yet shown any signs of turning banana-yellow. I eventually ate those two; they were just barely ripe.

Today I tried a third one. It still had a green spot down at the bottom. It turned out to be nowhere near ripe—hard, impossible to peel, with that terrible unripe-banana taste, the equivalent of fingernails on blackboard.

What does it take to ripen a banana these days? It's coming up on a month since I bought these. . . .