I had heard of banana boats, banana peels, banana splits, hangers, warmers and even hammocks, but until this week I had never heard of a banana casket. I just assumed the proper burial for a departed banana was in bread.

It turns out that a banana casket is intended for people. Almost exactly a year ago, I wrote a column about discount coffins from Costco, and that column was in a collection that won third place in the Humor Over 100,000 Circulation category of the 2009 National Society of Newspaper Columnists contest. Clearly, death is the topic I was born to write about.

(Some uncharitable souls have hinted to me that I won an award in this contest because I am the president of the organization. And to them, I say: If being president gave me any power over the contest outcome, don't you think I'd do better than third place? That's like sleeping your way to the middle.)

Biodegradable caskets are serious business, because death is now among the aspects of life that are going green. And by green I mean environmentally friendly, not moldy like neglected banana bread.

Natural burials are increasingly popular among trendy dead people, and while Ecoffins USA offers caskets made of banana sheaves, some manufacturers use other readily decaying materials such as cardboard or recycled newspapers.

I guess print really is dead.

I went online right away and was relieved to find these flimsy-sounding boxes are relatively sturdy and look, you know, nice. The thought of my discarded corpse folded in paper plates like a burned hot dog frankly offends my vanity.

A woven basket of banana sheaves has a rustic romance and will surely draw fewer fruit flies than a coffin made of actual bananas or a body bag made of peels. Both of which would set the wrong tone at the funeral, unless the deceased was a clown.

According to an Associated Press story, the caskets biodegrade in six months to two years, which is much longer than a ripe pear in a fruit bowl and quite possibly much shorter than an embalmed body. Lest you end up going commando in your cemetery plot, natural burials leave out the embalming, and the body is allowed to decompose.

Imagine that! Actually permitting a corpse to return to the earth instead of trying to keep it intact forever so that ... well, you tell me.

And the banana caskets are definitely a conversation piece. They have a rattan-y tropical look that will leave mourners with the feeling you were interred at Pier 1 Imports.

Bamboo and banana Ecoffins are made in Asia, colored with natural plant dyes and delivered, according to the company Web site, "complete with everything you need for a final send-off," including a cotton shroud and fitted liner and a bamboo headrest. The headrest looks comfortable only for someone who has died.

The shroud can be used in the traditional way for wrapping the body, "or may be personalized by family members prior to (or during) a ceremony and placed with the remains in the final resting place." I love the image of a loved one embroidering flowers. I'm a little disturbed by the image of a table scattered with Sharpies.

The surprising thing is that these woven boxes can supposedly carry up to 325 pounds -- maybe more than the pallbearers.

I think it all sounds very restful and soothing, like going off to some South Pacific resort to relax in a big wicker armchair on a veranda under waving fronds, sipping gin and tonic and listening to the wind and the birds.

Not a bad way to go when the time comes and the doctor tells you, "Don't buy any green bananas."