A reader named William Kearney describes the following mystery, which puzzles him every day:
Outside my building there is a woman with a fruit stand. Everything is normal about this fruit stand except for the fact that the BSL [Banana Stand Lady] will sell you two bananas for $1 and will sell you three bananas for $1! They are the same exact bananas (see attached picture) and the signs and stacks of bananas are literally one foot away from each other. I have done multiple double blind studies to test the quality of both piles of bananas and they really are the exact same. However, BSL gets upset if you try to get the three bananas from the two-banana pile.
Mysterious indeed. Readers, what could possibly be going through the BSL’s head? Is she perhaps a grad student working on a behavioral thesis?
William Kearney
William Kearney
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Don’t know what’s going through the head of BSL, but I can tell you why I — as an individual consumer — might occasionally pick the two bananas instead of the three. I can’t eat three bananas in one sitting, but I can eat two. Why not get three and save the other for later? Who knows when I’ll next be in the banana mood? It might be days later, by which time the other banana might be rotten. Maybe I should get three and give the third to a homeless person, but I’d rather donate to an affirmed charity.
I just don’t want food going to waste. It’s the same reason I buy the $0.99 cheeseburger at McDonalds, when I could splurge for the McDouble for $1.
The economics make sense to me as well. I can pay $1 for two bananas and have just what I need when I want it, or I can spend $1 for three bananas and then spent a lot of mental effort deciding what to do with the one banana I don’t eat.
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Organic vs. conventional?
She may be timing the age of the bananas?
The older bananas being cheaper, as she would prefer to have them sold first. This was her bananas are sold before they go bad.
Have you tried asking BSL?
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Also, note that on the “3 banana” sign there is also the option to buy single bananas for 40 cents. Thus your choices are:
1 banana for $0.40
2 bananas for $0.80
2 bananas for $1.00
3 bananas for $1.00
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There’s always money in the Banana Stand
The “3 for $1″ pile look like they’re in the sun more, and so are going to rot quicker. To sell them before they rot, BSL has to do the extra extra special deal, but this is not necessary for the “2 for $1″ pile. Perhaps?
The bananas are listed as 40 cents each. The stand owner likely does not want to have to deal with holding / distributing change. Therefore, she splits the baby and gives you a choice of either 2 bananas (80 cents) or 3 bananas (120 cents). Perhaps she does not like you taking two bananas from the three banana pile (or vice versa) because she has divided the bananas up into multiples of 2 or 3, and by taking the wrong number the piles are no equally divisible.