Banana Rama

I was outraged after I read Metamorphosis. As far as I could tell, Gregor was a decent guy who supported his entire family. And they took him for granted! They did not once stop to worry about Gregor's life as a bug, all they cared about was that they were losing the material comforts they had grown accustomed to thanks to Gregor's hard work. When he turned into an insect they didn't even care about him. They called him a drain. They never learned to love him. In fact, they treated him like dirt. And then he died. He died! He never got to turn back into a human and seek retribution for the horrible things his family did to him. This was enough to ruin the story for me, but no! After Gregor's demise the family didn't even learn their lesson! Good things happened to them and they got everything they ever wished for. Where is the justice? Where is the moral? What kind of story punishes the good and rewards the evil? The bad kind, that's what kind! Rather than write my own story of a “metamorphosis,” I decided to try my hand at satire. The following is my attempt to expose the terrors and treachery of Kafka's The Metamorphosis.


“And they lived happily ever after,” Gracie said, closing the fairy tale.
“Thank you Gracie!” The orphans with low blood sugar yelled.
“Anytime,” Gracie said, smiling. She loved volunteering at Colgate's home for children every other day after work. The children's smiling faces always kept her coming back; often she spent a portion of her hard earned paycheck on clothes and toys for them.
“Will you be coming back tomorrow?” The children asked.
“I'm sorry, tomorrow I am going door to door to ask people if they can find room in their hearts to adopt the pets at the shelter, then I'm going to the soup kitchen to feed homeless people. But I'll be back the day after that!”
Gracie grabbed her tattered coat (she bought all her clothes secondhand so she could support her family, as she was the sole provider) and headed out to walk to her next destination.
“Thank you so much for everything, Gracie,” Andy, the orphanage director, said as Gracie walked by. “Couldn't you stay a bit longer?”
“I'm sorry, but I have a Girl Scout meeting at six, and it's 5:45 so I really should be going.” “Ok, that's fine,” Andy said, crestfallen. “I'll see you Monday.”
Gracie hurried to her meeting, stopping only briefly on her way to rescue a kitten out of a tree and help an old lady cross the street.
At her Girl Scout meeting, Gracie revealed that she had ordered everyone new uniforms, securing the funds to do so by selling sixty-two thousand boxes of Girl Scout cookies, which happened to be a world record.
Needless to say, by the time Gracie returned home, she was exhausted. Even so, she prepared her jobless father and whiny sister dinner, checked her sister's homework, and did the wash and dishes before finally falling into a deep sleep.
When Gracie woke up the next morning, she was upset to find that she had somehow turned into a banana! Randomly! With absolutely no provocation! She just inexplicably turned into a banana! It was crazy!
How am I going to go to work so I can support my family? She thought, dismayed. Oh no! How can I go door to door collecting money for the dogs as a banana? I don't have legs or opposable thumbs! And those poor homeless people and orphans, what am I going to do?
“Gracie!” Her little sister, Wendy, screamed, barging into her room. “I have been awake for twenty minutes! Where is my breakfast? Why are you still in --”
Wendy stopped, catching sight of her banana/sister. “What happened to you?”
“What's going on in here?” Gracie's dad, Tyler, yelled, bursting into her bedroom.
“Gracie turned into a banana!” Wendy whined.
“How dare you! Now who is going to work? How are we supposed to eat? Who is going to buy me Jack Daniels? God Gracie, you are so selfish!” Tyler yelled, spittle spraying out over Wendy's face and Gracie's banana peel.
If banana's could cry, Gracie would have bawled her eyes out. The guilt she felt about no longer being able to support her family was crushing. She sat in her room, wondering why on earth she had turned into a banana, of all things.
Meanwhile, her father and sister sat in the living room, bickering.
“Damn that Gracie!” Tyler screamed. “How dare she? I only have two bottles of Jack Daniels left! That'll last what, three hours? Then what? She was supposed to make a liquor run for me this afternoon! I can't believe she'd turn into a banana! She's such a horrible child!”
“I know!” Wendy agreed. “How could she do this to me? She should consider how her metamorphosis affects me. This is so bad for me! I feel so misunderstood! This affects me in such a negative way! Who is going to take me shopping? What about me?”
And so they went, back and forth, for many days. Soon, they ran out of prepared food.
“Daddy!” Wendy whined. “I'm hungry! And the only food we have left is a bunch of stuff you have to cook and vanilla ice cream! It's so unfair Daddy! I want some fruit! I'm craving some fruit and we don't have any!”
“I know sweetheart, but Daddy's going through withdrawal right now and he doesn't particularly care about your little problems!” Tyler snapped back at her.
“But Daddy!”
“Damn it Wendy, I'm hungry too! But you know I don't shop! The only person in this family who ever shopped was--”
“GRACIE!” They said simultaneously, the same mouth watering thought crossing their minds.
“How does a banana split sound?” Wendy asked viciously.
“Oh Gracie...” Tyler yelled.
They stalked into her room, picked her up (she had gone a little brown around the edges from feeling so guilty) and set her down on the kitchen table. Tyler peeled her, dished out some ice cream, sliced her in half, and then they greedily devoured her.
“That was delicious,” Wendy said, sated.
“Mmhm,” her father agreed, to full to move.
Just then, the doorbell rang.
“Come in!” They both yelled.
The door opened and a man carrying a huge piece of cardboard strutted in.
“Is this the Martin residence?” The man asked.
“No--” Wendy started to say, but Tyler, recognizing Ed McMahon and his million dollar check, interrupted her.
“Why yes, yes it is!” He lied.
“Congratulations!” Ed said. “You just won a million dollars!”

The Martins cashed their check, invested it in Google, and soon they had more money than they could ever imagine. Wendy married rich and Tyler got a job as a Jack Daniels taste tester and nothing bad ever happened to them. Ever. They never learned their lesson, they never had to pay for what they did to Gracie. They lived happily ever after as unethical, evil, hideous pigs.

The End.