Today, after taking a rather scenic and winding route through the sun-heated city, I arrived at Open Harvest to perform my first volunteer shift.

Having only the name of the person I had talked to on the phone, I asked one of the workers if "J" was around. They said they thought he had gone for the day, but somebody else would surely be able to direct me about what needed to be done.

I was introduced to "G", who apparently knew what needed to be done. (BTW, I am hereby entering another new letter code namespace, entirely separate from the one that was used on this site a few years ago to pseudo-anonymously identify people.) I donned a green apron, and was ready to begin.

She suggested that I break down a bunch of boxes and take them out to the back to be recycled, and said the loading dock area also needed to be swept. Then she apologized for sending me to work outside in the heat, but I assured her that it didn't bother me significantly, as I had just ridden my bike through it.

I went about these tasks while she wandered off to do other things, and completed them in due course.

After I was done and found G again, she said she needed to go out for a short while, she didn't have anything else for me to do, and suggested that I might go upstairs and talk to "L". Barring that, I could go sweep the bulk aisle.

I wandered up to the designated location, and found L. L said she didn't have anything right away, but she might in a few minutes, and suggested that in the meantime, I might go sweep the bulk aisle, and she would come and get me when ready. (It seems that "sweeping the bulk aisle" is a universal standby. Indeed, when I got there, random small smatterings of stuff were spilled on the floor, ready to be swept.)

After I had swept it until no further traces of stray material could be found, I milled around a bit, drank some more purified water, and eventually wandered back upstairs and started milling around there.

L had been on the phone with a particularly annoying and persistent telemarketer. This one targeted retailers instead of private individuals. Apparently, as she told it to me, he had been trying convince her to have the store carry some sort of Cheerios product, which sounded somewhat dubious.

With that out of the way, L set me about the task of preparing a box of t-shirts for sale. This involved separating them, taking them out of the box, rolling each one into a neat little individual bundle with a string to hold it together, and stamping a price sticker on it. Simple enough.

These shirts were cool enough that I might have to buy one, and also quite reasonably priced. 30th anniversary Open Harvest celebration shirts, with a neato picture on the front. On the tag, "Made in Mexico with 100% Organic Cotton."

lol. Organic cotton. That's just too much. (She also added that they did their best to make sure the shirts were made under fair labor conditions. Yay!)

After spending about an hour at that, my shift was nearly up. L thanked me for my help, and said that if I wanted to shop for stuff, and my discount hadn't made it into the computer yet, just tell the clerks that she would vouch for me.

I bought some spinach and an apple to eat right away, and also got ingredients for my next batch of nut bars. (Oddly enough, the ingredients I got this time were almost identical to the ones I did for the first batch. After all my testing, I concluded that except for the 7-grain stuff, I had a good formula going. I just need to prepare it a little differently.)

At the front, when I told the clerk about my volunteering, she said, "That's right, that's why you look familiar." (I had passed her a time or two in the corridor, but I also remember her ringing me up at least a time or two in my pre-member days. i.e. last month)

With a yummy backpack full of food, I took another scenic route through town back to the Mideast Base.

I'll be back to do it again at the same time next week.

Thoughts, observations, conclusions:

• There's no way I'd be willing to do this for an ordinary corporation that happened to sell organic food, or even a proprietorship. Yet here, I don't mind putting time and energy into it. Why? I suppose there is an element of idealism to it, combined with self-interest.

  I also know that my actions will strictly be put to the benefit of the community, rather than helping to funnel yet more wealth into the pockets of some heartless CEO. (Or, in the case that the business profits, as a member, I'll get a piece of that at the end of the year too. (That assumes the re-org goes through; even though no official announcement has yet been made, I have it on good authority that there have already been enough votes cast to make it happen.))

• Even more than the official policy and values stuff printed out front, the informal stickers and other memorabilia pasted around the backroom make it clear that somebody has some of the same ideas I do. Bumper sticker liberals, unite!

• Ahem. The following kind of falls into the "unexpected fringe benifit" category, and there's no assurance that it will always be this way, but... damn... Some men pay hundreds of dollars per hour to have smart, attractive women order them around. Today, I got 3 hours for free!