Ben M. Angel said, “I actually heard this shortly after first hearing the story of Nate the Snake. Was surprised that it had not appear in your archives yet…” Thanks, Ben. I had not heard it before, and it will fill that hole in our collection.

There once was a young man who was so enthralled with bananas that he decided to go down to the tropics and start up a plantation of his own. He saved up his money and within a few years, found himself in a jungle city making deals to purchase the land required to start a plantation. This however, was very easy, and once he found the appropriate plot of land, he set out to find banana seeds.

This was where he ran into trouble. Everyone had bananas, but no one had banana seeds. In fact no one knew from where to get banana seeds, and this frustrated him greatly. Finally one old man took pity on his plight and suggested that he would tell him how to get banana seeds.

“To grow bananas from seed, you must first have the right banana. Fortunately I have such bananas for sale, and I will sell you some. But getting the seeds out is hard work. You see, you have to cut off the end of the seed banana, like this, and then you have to suck on the open end. You have to suck and suck, and not give up until you get a seed. After the first seed, the rest of the seeds come out easier,” explained the old man.

The young man thought this very peculiar, but he bought the bananas and took them home. He cut off the end of one banana, and started to suck. He sucked all the banana insides out, but no banana seed came out. Thinking perhaps he had a dud banana, he picked out another and repeated the procedure. Finally, he gave up and decided to come back to the guy who sold him the “special” bananas and complain.

“So you sucked until there was no more banana left in the skin, you say? But did you keep on sucking on the banana after that? You have to continue to suck the banana until it is well past empty. Then the seeds will come out. Go home and try it again,” said the old man.

He returned home and cut open yet another banana again, and began to suck on the banana again. He sucked until the banana was completely sucked empty, and his lips turned blue. He was sure he was being ripped off by the old man, and he went back to him the next day.

“Those bananas were good seed bananas, but if you don’t believe me, I will give you this bunch of seed bananas for free. But I tell you there is no other way to get banana seeds than to suck on an empty banana. If you do not get any seeds from this bunch or the last bunch, you may come back here, and I will give you all your money back. But I am sure you will have all the seeds you want if you really put yourself into extracting the seeds,” the old man recommended.

Well, the young man decided he would put his best effort into these new bananas, that one way or another, he would suck the seeds out of them. He concentrated his efforts on one of the new bananas, emptying it of the fruit. When he was sucking on just the skin, he kept at it, and finally after a couple hours, he felt something in his mouth. It has small, hard; it was a seed ! He sucked some more and soon he had a handful of seeds from just one banana. He then followed up on all the other bananas of both bunches, and by the next day, he was ready to plant.

The moral of this story is: If at first you don’t suck seeds, try and try again.