My favorite album is Fresh Fruit in Foreign Places , by Kid Creole and the Coconuts. Actually, that's my favorite album title, because I've never heard the album. But I've heard about the album, from a friend with an anal fixation. This friend apparently retained many things sphinctrally. He went way beyond produce when it came to inserting objects where the sun didn't shine.

Kid Creole's album also reminds me of another friend, who was an expert with a zucchini. She lived with a man, but the two of them didn't have sex. They used to have sex, but had become "just roommates" when the man began spending all of his free time in topless bars. Anyway, while she was alone, my friend would fetch a kitchen knife and a large zucchini and start to carve. She would whittle the squash until it was the perfect size and shape. Then she would insert the fresh vegetable into a foreign place. Or so she told me.

I personally prefer a banana. Not for myself, because it would hurt, you know. I prefer to be the inserter, not the insertee. The banana is for my partner, see, and we would use it only when neither of us is hungry. This is also why we wouldn't use a salami. After all, why attack with a hot meat stick when you can use it for a cold-cut snack?

But let me get back to the banana: I prefer a slightly green, firm fruit, one that won't turn to mush with a push. And I don't want any squirming when I put the unripe fruit in an alien place. So I will have to tie up my partner.

Still, I want her to have fun, too, so I will take her to where the sun always shines. "Pack your bags," I will say. "We're going to the plantation!"

On the banana ranch, I will fasten her between two banana trees and peel off her clothing. She might be apprehensive about the pulpy nodule's approach, so I will use the palm fronds to tickle her. When she is totally hysterical, I will be able to explore her coconut (her Kid Creole coconut!) with my stalklike fruit (which is totally at home in an unfamiliar place).

"This," I will explain, "is what happens in the tropics."