A Boatload

At some point we have probably all used the expression: a boatload of..... to express an enormously large quantity of something.

Well, yesterday I really did see a boatload of bananas.

Sunday was one of those sunny, blue sky, see for ever kind of days. Motivated Mom and I were at the beach enjoying nature's gift. On the horizon the western coastline of New Jersey stood out more clearly than I can ever remember having seen it before.

I dug out a pair of binoculars to see if I could zoom in on anything more specific than the lighthouse at Cape May. Just when I nearly had the binoculars in perfect focus, something obstructed my vision.

Making the necessary magnification adjustments, I found myself looking at a cargo ship. Emblazoned on the hull of the ship was the word Chiquita. The ship was loaded down with metal containers that could only be filled with bananas.

I started counting containers, wondered how many tons of bananas a single container held, how many individual bananas were in a ton, and started working on hypothetical equations.

After losing my place in the multiplication process for the third time I decided I didn't need to know the exact number of bananas. Boatload was good enough