mango

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

In America, a stranger will rename you in a single breath, and you are simply expected to come when called.

I went to eat at a busy restaurant. A young man at the front asked for my name, to mark my place in line. I gave it the weight it has carried for eight hundred years.

"Nobunaga."

He smiled, nodded, and wrote it down with great confidence. Then he read it back to me, to be sure he had honored it correctly.

"Perfect. Banana, party of one."

Banana. He had heard my name, held it a moment, and returned to me something rounder and more cheerful. To refuse the name a host gives is to refuse his welcome. I bowed. I was Banana now.

Then he handed me a small black disc, said it would "light up and buzz" when my table was ready, and turned to the next guest as though he had not just placed a living thing in my hands.

I held it in both palms, the way one holds a small sleeping beast that may wake. I found a place to stand. I waited, ready.

It woke.

It screamed. It flashed red. It leapt and shook in my hands like a captured spirit demanding release. A lesser man would have dropped it. I did not. I gripped it, steady, looked into its blinking lights, and told it, in a low voice, that its time had come. Then I carried it back to the host with both hands, the way one returns a hawk to its master.

He took it without looking and shouted across the entire room.

"BANANA! Party of one, your table's ready!"

A hundred strangers turned. I rose. I crossed that floor as Banana, spine straight, chin level, a man answering to his name. A child pointed at me. I gave the child a small bow. He had recognized me.

All through the meal they kept me. "How's it tasting, Banana?" "More water, Banana?" The check, when it came, said Banana, and thanked me for visiting. By the end the whole staff knew me. They waved as I left. "Night, Banana!"

So tell me honestly.

For eight hundred years my clan answered to one name. Tonight I answered to a fruit, calmed a screaming relic in my bare hands, and ate among people who were glad I came.

When the little disc lights up, is the table truly mine, or am I only keeping it warm for the next Banana?

Because I have already decided to return on Friday, and to ask, very humbly, for the same disc.

[Cabaret Macabre @macabaret_17]

@TheBabylonBee Trust me, it makes a lot more sense if you’ve read the book.

[Probably at DC’s @WhyWeDrinkHere]

Came across this TikTok and threw my phone

[Ben McCollum is my hero @MountMcKeever]

I can't think of a more deserving man for this award.

Fred Hoiberg's 4 man lineup was crucial for Iowa advancing to the Elite 8.

[CreighTakes @CreighTakes]

“GET OUTTA HERE. GET OUTTA HERE.”

“This was…. EVERYTHING. I’ve spent FIVE years of my life at Nebraska. I’ve seen NOTHING but a Sweet 16.”

Nebraska fans not taking this loss well🤒

[Hawk Takes @Hawk_Takes]

Nebraska only having 4 guys on the floor is the basketball equivalent of this…

[Stephen Glansberg @RenobHawk]

At 6:16 left in the game, Pryce Sandfort made a 3 to take the lead against Iowa. The TBS broadcast showed Matt Rhule in the crowd.

After said basket, Nebraska went on a 5 minute and 9 second scoring drought and got outscored 15-6 for the rest of the game.

[IowaMamaHawk @xrayanneiowa]

You mean

[Mur🥜 @SquirrelMurray]

@WhyWeDrinkHere Is Brian Ferentz interested too?

[Probably at DC’s @WhyWeDrinkHere]

A moment Iowa City will never forget

[Chris Hassel @Hassel_Chris]

Another one

[Chris Hassel @Hassel_Chris]

I really didn’t think it was possible to love this genius any more than I already do but damn it I’m over the moon now

[Probably at DC’s @WhyWeDrinkHere]

Photo of the year

[Iowa Men's Basketball @IowaHoops]

It just means more.

@MarchMadnessMBB x @TheIowaHawkeyes

[Barstool Sports @barstoolsports]

Alvaro Folgueiras’s mom hasn’t been able to come see him play at Iowa in 2 years

She was in the building tonight to see him knock down the game-winner against #1 seed Florida

[That’s A Bad Call @BadCallOfficial]

This was not called a foul on Florida.

Rueben Chinyelu plows over the Iowa player.

That’s a bad missed call.

[redpillbot @redpillb0t]

Mel Gibson drops a gut-punch in this 44-second clip:

“Why are the big realms of good and evil slugging it out for the souls, the hearts and souls of mankind? Why are we the meat in that sandwich? Little old us. Flawed us. Imperfect us. Why is that about us?”

[Ben Stan @HawkeyeBBFan]

That’s one way to stop him…