The yellow peril: British woman has a fear of bananas

Fortunately, England is not in the Banana Belt, because Fran Dando, a 21-year-old resident of Hastings in East Sussex, has a rare phobia: a fear of bananas. When she was seven, her brother played a practical joke by placing the phallic fruit in her bed. She “felt this horrible, slimy thing underneath my body,” she told a British reporter. “I was frozen in panic and hyperventilating.” Even today, the sight of the fruit makes her sweat, shake, even vomit.

(Wow, I haven’t felt this turned on since I placed two peeled ripe cantaloupes on my chest and rubbed the fragrant flesh for a morning of melon lovin’!)

Dando tries to control her fear by avoiding any contact with bananas. “I generally do not explain my fear unless a situation comes up,” she said. “Then I will say: ‘Sorry I am going to have to leave the room’. It is embarrassing – it is such a nonsensical fear.”

Unfortunately, Dando who has a toddler who loves bananas. So when she serves him the fruit, she has to put on rubber gloves and use a tea towel to feed him.

Fruit of her nightmares, fruit of her loins.