Being Maurice on the Fourth of July.

Thank Heaven for little girls. Without them what would little boys do?

I have a knack for making small talk in stores. My son used to say I embarrassed him. I am simply interested in people. I will talk to anyone. 

Thus, it was no great surprise when on the Fourth the July I struck up a conversation with a young woman in a red dress by the organically oriented freezer case section of a local Fred Meyer. Fred Meyer is not the best venue for conversations. It lags behind natural foods stores like Whole Foods and New Seasons. The reason has to do with philosophy. Regular stores attract people who aren't particularly concerned with saving the whales, for example, or whether GMOs are harmful. They want to buzz in and buzz out. Organically oriented stores make you want to linger and absorb the good vibes.

Organically oriented stores are like magnets for attracting like-minded people. I often lose track of time in Whole Foods and New Seasons. I am swept away by the idea of being surrounded by mostly organic offerings. I have shopped in Trader Joe's near Bel Air, California and never gotten this satisfaction. Organically oriented groceries give me the impression they care about important things, like not dying of cancer, and living to a ripe old age. These types of stores share my vision of right living. We are like kindred spirits.

Has this ever happened to you? You are by an organic produce display, and you reach for a mango and another person (a pretty woman, par example), reaches and your fingers touch and voila! a conversation ensues. You discover they like chocolate babka and you like cinnamon babka and voila! you arrange to share slices while sipping expresso at her place or yours. This is more true in stores with a relaxed shopping experience. Seven-Eleven won't work. Perhaps what is needed in Whole Foods, and stores like it, are lounges where shoppers, who have found that certain spark that ignites love affairs, can park their carts and make out. That would be quirky, but not unthinkable.

Fred Meyer/Kroger could learn a lot from Whole Foods and New Seasons. But that is not their focus. Their organic section is like a shoebox. Three aisles away there are enough GMOs to put you in Cedar Sinai. Go beyond the organic/natural food section in Fred Meyer and you'll end up in Monsanto-Land. But don't get me started about them.

Admittedly, I am easy to titillate. I see romance in fruit. Weird, huh? The sight of a large multi-colored mango makes me swoon. I want to touch it, no, caress it, and even talk to it. Does that make me crazy? Maybe. But when we are in an environment we love we want to stay forever. We want to meet others like us, who have the things we like in their carts. To people who like stores that have that warm, welcoming, healthy glow, meeting someone while staring through a bakery glass display case at those tiny works of art they call tartlets, is like meeting at the Louvre. The bakers offer knowing smiles, having seen many nut-jobs ogling their creations. They wink and like jewelers, open their cases so the young lovers can look at the delectable desserts and be betrothed with sugar and artistry.

I behave badly around handcrafted soaps. I have stood by soap displays in natural foods stores for half a day and sniffed bars of multihued and textured soaps repeatedly. Once I bought six bars of different soaps. Why? I had temporarily lost my mind. I set the soap on my kitchen table and sighed. What human being needs that much soap? No one. So I mailed most of them to friends. Is soap a gift most people expect? Men think you're gay if you send them anise scented soap, or that you are inferring they have body odor issues. Women think you're gay because most men do not buy exotic soap and mail it to their friends. Most women take extra care about body odors, so when they see soap they think cleanliness and bubble baths in hot steamy bathtubs surrounded by flickering colorful candles. In other words, they equate expensive soap to the good life. With romance. Soap, to a woman, is romantic. To a man it is just soap.

I rarely go to Fred Meyer, and when I go it is to buy organic foods or personal care products from their small natural foods section. Which is how I met the woman in the red dress on the Fourth of July. I was not seeing where the organic frozen blueberries were in the freezer case, so I asked her if she saw them because at times my eyes go buggy because I am old and the cases were also fogged up in places. Then I had my subconscious psychic revelation about the woman. It only works when I do not try to do it. So I suddenly blurted out, "You're a writer, aren't you?" The blonde took a half step back and said, "Yes! How did you know that?"

And that led to ten minutes talking about writing and our journey as writers. She had gotten her MFA in Creative Writing in L.A. I was impressed because I too aspired to get an MFA. I studied the plastic name tag she had pinned to her blouse. Her right hand balanced a clipboard that had a shopping list attached. She explained her day job was at a care center for the elderly. I admit I was perplexed why a woman with an MFA was working a day job at a care center. Did she have a breakdown? Did she have a thing for old people? Was she researching a book she planned to write? No. She was just shopping for old people on the Fourth of July because they needed something soft to chew for dinner. My impression: A writer, and a nice human being. But alas, she was too young for me. I was old enough to be her father. It was a common scenario; old man makes a fool of himself in a grocery with a woman in a red dress. Well, not the common I suppose. I have gotten used to it by now. Rejection, I mean. By women, by employers, by publishers, by aliens who will not abduct me.

Listen: no matter how mature a young woman might be, the age barrier is like the Berlin Wall that has yet to be breached, (except perhaps in France or Hispanic nations. There, age is of no great importance). In America, though it is made up of people from many nations more tolerant of age differences, there are taboos in place that have yet to be toppled, except by the very rich and the very alluring and ambitious.

Which is not to say that young women and old men cannot be friends. We all need cheerleaders, and age has nothing to do with being friends. But if we are honest, there is always going to be a certain exotic soap thing going on. Friction in the air; sexual tension.  The game of sexual attraction is no different than being in close proximity to chocolate babka or exotic soaps. We want to sample the wares. We are only human: we are curious.

And there is the biological conundrum. Young women, especially women in their 30s, are like factories ready to produce product. They are on the clock. Their bodies want to produce babies, and they hear their clocks ticking. Not all women want children. Not all women can have children. But the majority of young women do. And while old men are capable of fathering children, it is a quandary to explain why grandpa has a woman on his arm who is young enough to be his daughter. Which is why people in America stare when they see couples with age differences akin to the gap of the Grand Canyon. The film, The Reader, is a perfect example of the problems that arise due to age differences. There are stigmas that are not easily overcome: young men with older women are called gigolos, and young women with older men are called gold diggers. I suppose I am just an old fool, and since time will not stop, I will just get more ridiculous as I age.

But let me clarify: when I see a young single woman, I do not see them through the eyes of an over-fifty year old man, but as a man who loves women. I become Maurice Chevalier. I fall for Gigi over and over. I have a natural curiosity about people. It is the writer in me.

When I see an interesting person I naturally want to share my babka with them. With the lady in red I offered a potato chip bag I'd designed. It can be found in almost every store in America. The old people the Lady in Red takes care of might  have needed the extra spicy luau flavor to make their Fourth of July memorable. And as for the Lady in Red, well, perhaps I have gained a friend, a fellow cheerleader of writing, because writing is a lonely craft. And if she never writes or phones, then at least she has my card and who knows, it might inspire her writing. So only good can come of it.

Oh thank Heaven for little girls, and their joie de vivre.