Understimulated with my usual Safeway and Lucky choices for groceries, I decided to splurge a bit and do some really good organic hunting for food (the ketchup remains to be tried for edibility). I didn’t even bother looking through the peanut butters. There are just some things that I think are worthless without corn syrup, sorry!

The moment I walked in, I struck gold (not grocery-wise)! What before my eyes did appear? A woofy fully-bearded man in a kilt — but it gets better! He was an EMPLOYEE. This is Castro Valley, a relatively conservative suburb near a working class suburb that I actually live in, although it’s relatively progressive compared to many parts of the world and the country. Then I started observing that some of the other employees were bearded and handsome and seemed to love working there, and I know one of them did a double take when he saw me. He was a ruggedly handsome, silver-haired foxy cub type and I felt coy when he seemed to followed me down some aisles with the excuse to sort some product, which required that he step away from his register. He was adorning shorts and spandex sleeves (which are pretty sexy). I had never seen attire like that before, but I suspect they were to keep his arms warm while still being able to wear a short-sleeved shirt to mitigate the draft as the registers are right by the automatic doors. It does get brisk in the evenings in California.

We made idle chit-chat and hopefully he noticed I waited in a longer line just to have him be my cashier. Among other things I said, “it looks like it’s fun to work here.” With all the creatively-pierced guys working there, and the metrosexual and gay guys who come in for their macrobiotic food, I can only imagine that it’s a hospitable place for flirtation, even if just an oasis outside of the Mecca of San Francisco across the bay.