For anyone who has ever gone camping, perhaps no phrase brings back more poignant memories than "drip and dry."� And perhaps no acronym brings back such joy as GORP - Good Ol' Raisins and Peanuts, one of your sole sources of subsistence on an extended trip. GORP doesn't just solely consist of those things, however - you can throw in almost anything you want: sunflower seeds, chocolate chips, dried fruit, small animals, and cured meats. One thing to never throw in, however, is banana chips.

Oh sure, when I first had the "˜option' to add those deceptive little pieces of hell to my bag, I was intrigued. After all, I like the banana. It would not even be entirely unreasonable for me to say I love the banana. I find the banana, with its mild yet stimulating taste, a noble contender for the Fruit Crownâ„¢, which is awarded every year to my favorite fruit in a grand ceremony in my kitchen. The banana is a versatile fruit, good whether in cereal, bread, or wherever else you might place bananas. Shaped like a crescent moon, the banana's powers are almost hypnotic - it has several dances named after it, a TV show (Bananas in Pajamas), and an ice cream dish. It is also a hypnotic word to type and/or read, because the alternating "˜a' and "˜n.' Banana. You will mail your money to me. But I don't believe in hypnotism.

Yes, like the kid who sits in the back row corner typing on his laptop and pushing his glasses up every few moments, the banana doesn't cause very much trouble. But one thing it does not get along with well is GORP. I foolishly added about two metric tons of banana chips to my GORP bag, expecting the banana-y goodness to keep me sustained on the trail. You can imagine my horror when I opened my bag and found that the banana chips had taken over.

Like the Mongols of old or the Canadians of modern day, the invaders had struck without warning. The entire bag reeked of dried bananas and every bite made me nauseous. It's not even the actual taste of the banana chips that is so disgusting, though - it's their ability to make everything around them taste like dried banana too. They were a veritable plague, sweeping over the fertile lands of peanut and chocolate like a horde of locusts. It was impossible to tell what was banana and what was not. The bananas had simply dominated and assimilated all opposing forces. I wept.

The only strategy that had worked was a preemptive strike. My trip leader had realized that the banana chips were corroding his bag and had forced himself to eat them all on the first day to stop the spread of disease. It was a primitive form of quarantine, but a beautifully effective one. His noble self-sacrifice would later cause the destruction of his stomach lining.

I hate to criticize the banana, and must stress that I have no personal issue with the fruit in its original, natural state. But whoever decided that it'd be a good idea to drain all the water out of the fruit and slice it into little pieces made a terrible, terrible error.

Banana chips are to the banana what buffalo chips are to the buffalo. Pieces of shit.