OAK PARK, IL—Eyeing his contribution to the gathering’s potluck offerings with concern, local man Thomas Rafferty reportedly spent the duration of his coworker’s party Saturday anxiously watching his homemade banana bread go uneaten.
According to reports, Rafferty periodically checked up on the loaf of banana bread he brought to colleague Jessica Dowling’s party throughout the evening, repeatedly finding excuses to walk by the table of dessert and snack items and keeping the confection in his line of sight while socializing.
“God, it’s been over an hour—someone should have taken a piece by now,” said the man who set the banana bread on a plate some 75 minutes earlier, making sure to remove its plastic wrap covering in an effort to make the baked good as accessible and visually appealing as possible. “There must be 25 people here. What’s taking so long?”
“It’s sitting right there,” Rafferty continued. “Come on.”
Rafferty, who spent much of the party lingering in the kitchen near the varied assortment of treats, is said to have anxiously looked on when anyone approached the table, his mood swinging from a sense of hopeful optimism to disappointment and anxiety when guests ignored his banana bread and left with another food item. Though Rafferty considered taking a piece for himself in order to “get the ball rolling,” he told reporters that he ultimately decided the move would reek of desperation.
“It probably looks bland compared to those lemon bars over there. God, I could have made oatmeal raisin cookies, but I just had to go with banana bread, didn’t I?”
After dozens of minutes of mounting aggravation, the 31-year-old reportedly surmised that his fellow guests’ indifference to his contribution to the party most likely stemmed from the fact that he had neglected to set out a knife, explaining to reporters that he was confident that, after he placed the utensil alongside the treat, guests would eagerly try the banana bread. However, half an hour later, a flustered Rafferty confirmed that the knife still had not been used to slice the bread.
Rafferty reportedly made a conscious effort halfway through the party to put the banana bread out of his mind and not let it affect him, though he eventually proved unable to resist glancing over at his homemade dessert while chatting with several guests, and only grew more exasperated upon noticing that the bread remained wholly intact.
“Of course everybody just loves that damn carrot cake with the cream cheese frosting,” said Rafferty, who nearly two hours after arriving, reportedly began second-guessing his recipe and his decision to make banana bread in the first place. “It probably looks bland compared to those lemon bars over there. God, I could have made oatmeal raisin cookies, but I just had to go with banana bread, didn’t I?”
“I knew I should have added chocolate chips,” Rafferty added. “Dammit.”
Growing increasingly agitated as the party wore on, Rafferty reportedly made an excuse at one point to visit the bathroom, stopping quickly along the way to relocate his banana bread to a more prominent position in the center of the table while pushing a popular tray of fudge brownies toward the back. Fifteen minutes later, however, Rafferty was said to be fuming again after checking up on the still-undisturbed banana bread and finding that someone had finished off the chocolate bundt cake.
“Why would anybody choose mini muffins that were obviously bought from a grocery store over a slice of freshly baked banana bread?” said Rafferty, sighing in apparent disgust. “Next time, I guess I’ll just bring some damn onion dip. Is that what they want?”
“[The party’s host] Jessica made a big deal about how tasty my banana bread looked when I first got here, but she still hasn’t taken a slice, even though I’ve seen her polish off three apple tartlets,” Rafferty added. “Fucking liar.”