“What are you doing,” Magellan asked suddenly. The feet of his chair hit the ground with a thud as he looked across at Monk. “You’ve been silent for a good thirty minutes and have not eaten one banana chip.”

Monk sat at the desk across from him. Papers and maps were spread across it. “I was thinking,” he answered.

“About what,” Magellan asked, handing him the bag of banana chips.

“Bananas,” Monk replied taking one of the offered chips.

“Well,” Magellan said, leaning back in his chair, “I think about them quite often but never for thirty minutes without talking.”

Monk smiled. Magellan rarely went thirty minutes without talking. “Have you noticed that certain banana taste different than other bananas,” Monk asked.

“Well of course,” Magellan reponded. “Those bananas they served in Vietnam were just awful. I don’t know how they cooked them.”

“If we are starting a banana plantation. I think we should plant the perfect banana.”

“And do you know what that is?”

“No,” Monk replied. “That’s what I was contemplating. I think we need to go search for it. We could fly down through Central and South America and when we find the perfect banana we will know what to plant.”

“Brilliant idea,” Magellan said, standing up. “When do we start?”

It took a week to arrange all the details. Monk and Magellan were very excited when they finally took off and headed South. Both monkeys were quite tired by the time they landed in southern Mexico. It felt good to get out and stretch their legs.

They found their way to a hostel and checked in for the night. “I’m so hungry, I could eat a truck load of bananas,” Magellan commented as they headed to a restaurant.

The restaurant served them tacos with bananas as dessert. Magellan bit into one of them and got a big smile on his face, “this banana,” he declared, “is amazing. I think we can end our search right now.”

Monk agreed with him that it was a good banana. He pulled out his notebook and jotted down a few specs about the banana.

The next day they headed into the jungle to continue their quest. They travel all day. During the morning, they rode buses but the last several miles had to be hiked. Anything was worth it to find the perfect banana. The sun was going down when they finally arrived at the village. Monk counted the houses. In the 6^th house down the second street lived a fellow name Jose. Monk met him online and arranged to spend the night there.

Jose greeted them cheerfully and served them typically village fare which of course included bananas.

“This banana,” Magellan said, starting his second one, “is perfect.” He looked across at Monk, “you were definitely right when you said the hike would be worth it.”

Monk bit into his banana. It was an incredible banana. The taste was very satisfying. They finished dinner and settled down to sleep. Both monkeys fell asleep as soon as they lay down. Before long, Monk woke up with a start. He sat up to find out where a noise came from. The rooster crowed again. Monk lay back down. He had trouble falling back asleep. Another rooster responded with a crow and then one on the other side of the village. This seemed to go on for the whole night.

“Whoever said roosters crow at sunrise forgot to inform Mexican roosters of that fact,” Monk grumbled sitting down to the breakfast table.

“So, they kept you up too,” Magellan asked. “I’d like to wring all their necks.”

He handed the bananas across to Monk. Monk eager took one. He remembered how wonderful they had tasted last night. They did not taste so wonderful this morning. He asked Jose if they were the same bananas and were informed that yes they were.

“That’s odd,” thought Monk, “I’ve never know a banana that tasted this different between night and morning unless the ripeness was different.” He inspected the bunch and took another one that was the same ripeness as the banana, he had eaten the night before. It was disappointing. Monk did not want to be rude so he did not say anything.

They headed out shortly to continue on to a bigger city that supposedly had several types of bananas. It took two days to get there. Magellan declared he was ready for a long hot shower.

Monk went off to figure out dinner plans while Magellan took his shower. When he arrived back at their room, he found Magellan sitting on the bed with the window wide open. Monk glanced at his watch. He had only been gone for 10 minutes. Magellan never showered in ten minutes.

“The shower is freezing,” Magellan declared. “I think they need an engineer around here to help them make it hot.”

Monk nodded, that explained the quick shower. They headed out to taste bananas. Magellan declared that they were all awful. Monk did not agree with him. He thought several of them were very good.

The next morning when they came down for breakfast, Monk handed Magellan another banana. “You should try this type,” he said.

Magellan bit into it, skeptically after his experience the night before. A smile spread across his face. “This type is quite good,” he said examining it. “We should have had it last night.”

Monk laughed. “We did.”

“No way,” Magellan declared. “I did not have a single banana this good last night.”

“You had this type,” Monk said. “I’m beginning to conclude that there is not a perfect banana out there. I think the perfect banana comes from your perspective. When we have been very hungry, we thought the bananas were amazing. But the next morning when we were tired because of those stupid roosters, we did not think they were amazing. Last night, you were disappointed because of our shower and that clouded your view of bananas. This morning you are in a better mood and thus the bananas tasted better.”

“So, it should be easy to grow the perfect banana,” Magellan said thoughtfully, eating another banana.

“Yes, but growing a good attitude might be harder,” Monk agreed. “I think we should try being grateful for every banana we have and then they will all be amazing.”

“Quite right,” Magellan agreed. “But how do you grow a good attitude? Because we can’t sell the most amazing bananas if the people eating them have bad attitudes.”

“That is the challenge,” Monk said. “Maybe instead of searching for the perfect banana we should search for how to have the perfect attitude.”