By FREAKONOMICSA reader named William Kearney describes the following mystery, which puzzles him every day:
Outside my building there is a woman with a fruit stand. Everything is normal about this fruit stand except for the fact that the BSL [Banana Stand Lady] will sell you two bananas for $1 and will sell you three bananas for $1! They are the same exact bananas (see attached picture) and the signs and stacks of bananas are literally one foot away from each other. I have done multiple double blind studies to test the quality of both piles of bananas and they really are the exact same. However, BSL gets upset if you try to get the three bananas from the two-banana pile.
Mysterious indeed. Readers, what could possibly be going through the BSL’s head? Is she perhaps a grad student working on a behavioral thesis?
William Kearney
