Banana

BANANA

The Keed with the dreaded D100 and flash.

(That pocket zipper is the same as the original jacket-zipper. The hood [never used] is for comparison.)

The dreaded “Banana” is retired.
Not the motorbike; the jacket (pictured).
The “Banana” is the down-filled jacket I bought years ago at Burlington Coat-Factory.
It’s very functional, but liked to eat zippers.
It came with a plastical zipper (like the pocket-zipper), but that soon gave out.
We replaced it with another plastic zipper, but that soon gave out too.
Zipper-teeth would disintegrate.
So we replaced it with a metal zipper, but the zipper-head would jam on adjacent nylon shell lining.
We had to replace the whole shebang with zipper number-four; but it too liked to jam on the shell-lining.
Once it jammed so bad we had to cut away shell-fabric.
So now I had a hole in the lining next to zipper. I had to avoid that, but could.
I also learned the head might jam, but the lining wasn’t hooked in the zipper-teeth. Work past the jam and I could back it down.
Meanwhile, the shell was getting dirtier and dirtier.
I could wash the jacket, but that invited disgorging goose-down. So I dry-cleaned it a few times.
Anxious to get a new jacket, I went back to Burlington Coat-Factory. Other sources (like Lands End) had goose-down jackets, but they were chintsy.
I walked out of Burlington Coat-Factory with another down-filled jacket, but it’s overkill. Too warm. Fine for an inactive person, but not to ski in. (My first test at Burlington Coat-Factory got tossed, because it liked to jam the zipper-head.)
I also used the Banana a lot to ride motorbike. I liked the fact it was yellow. Yellow gets seen; even more so than red.
I took the Banana along on our motorbike trip to the mighty Curve; much to the noisy chagrin of the almighty Bluster-King.
It was July, but I know how it is. I don’t like riding motorbike with an inadequate jacket in the cold (and at 60+ mph on motorbike the breeze is colder).
But I never needed it.
But the Banana needed replacement.
But to replace it meant meeting various givens; the pursuit of which consumed time.
I already had made one mistake.
Froogle produced 89 bazilyun hits, none of which seemed adequate.
It also didn’t bring up the jacket I ended up trying.
So another online stab-in-the-dark.
Order a jacket and see what arrives.
But VIOLA! It fits and is light enough to ski in; yet warm.
So the Banana is retired.
Now for a deluge of LL Bean suggestions; even though LL Bean was among the discarded Froogle-hits.

RE: “Banana” is the name my macho-blowhard Harley-guy brother-from-Boston gave this jacket as a put-down.

My motorcycle, a 600cc 2003 Honda CBR/RR crotch-rocket, is known as the LHMB. Seeing a picture of it, my sister-in-Floridy declared “Lord-Have-Mercy;” and my macho loudmouthed Harley-guy brother-in-Boston, seeing it was yellow, pronounced it a “Banana.” So LHMB equals Lord-Have-Mercy-Banana; not to be confused with the jacket.

The “mighty Curve” (Horseshoe Curve), west of Altoona, Pennsylvania, is by far the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to. Horseshoe Curve is a national historic site. It was a trick used by the Pennsylvania Railroad to get over the Allegheny mountains without steep grades. Horseshoe Curve was opened in 1854, and is still in use. (I am a railfan.) My brother-from-Boston and I rode our motorcycles there about five-six summers ago. (The Pennsylvania Railroad is no longer in existence. It merged with New York Central Railroad in 1968 as Penn-Central, and that went bankrupt in about two years. The Pennsylvania Railroad was once the largest railroad in the world.)

“The almighty Bluster-King” is my macho, loudmouthed brother-from-Boston. He badmouths everything I do or say.

RE: “Now for a deluge of LL Bean suggestions........” —My brother-from-Delaware and his wife will make 89 bazilyun LL Bean suggestions for a down-filled jacket. They are heavily into LL Bean.