Every other Friday, I spend two hours downtown at the local co-op. I cannot say I work there, because it's a barter arrangement that provides our household with a healthy discount on such notable co-op products as organic apple juice, cashews in bulk, cinnamon-flavored, cruelty-free toothpaste and locally made baked goods the size of my head. At the same time, I spend my shifts carrying boxes of vegetables and fruits to the appropriate sections, making pyramids out of yams, locating organic limes, and chopping, weighing and bagging loose herbs. So to some extent it's very like work, except for being completely enjoyable.

Last Friday was a working Friday for me, and there were mounds and mounds of loose organic herbs just waiting to be organized and flung at the general health-conscious public. (I am notable for being enthusiastic in all matters flinging-related.) Two hours goes by remarkably quickly when you are not trying to avoid splashing urine on yourself, and the co-op has much better music than the hospital. Co-op: Gipsy Kings, Desmond Dekker and Cake. Hospital: grumblings of underpaid and overworked staff (trad.).

The first order of business was a sale on organic spinach. All the produce arrives in back loose in big boxes or crates, or in the case of loose-leaf spinach, a bag. The drill went thusly: grab a handful of glossy green leaves, stuff them in a smaller bag, twist-tie the top. Grab grab grab, stuff stuff stuff, twist twist twist. When all of the spinach is tied up, weigh all the bags on a nifty electronic scale that spits out labels as you weigh. Resist the urge to get on the scale. So. Grab grab grab, stuff stuff stuff, twist twist twist. After a few minutes, your mind saunters off to do its own thing, perhaps thinking of all the recipes this spinach could produce (pesto, salad with nuts and oranges, frittatta), perhaps marveling at how much greener and glossier all the organic produce is than the conventional. Perhaps you will grab a handful of leaves and think of your friend Karen who, in contemplation of the same handful of spinach, would automatically reach for at least two sticks of butter; despite many years living as an expatriate, Karen remains Very Southern. Her butter addiction may be permanent. The hour passes pleasantly.

Next up is a crate of basil. It is not organic, it is conventional, but it still needs to get into little bags with weighed labels. It is not loose-leaf, but tightly bound collections of leaves and stems, all wedged into the crate with so much force that when I opened the flap, the entire crate seemed to exhale just slightly. This is something new, but I assume it will go much like loose-leaf herb wrangling, in which I am by now very proficient.

This was my first mistake.

The bound bundles are stuffed so tightly into the crate that to attempt to free any one of them causes a slight flurry of torn leaf bits to whirl up from the box and gently settle all over the basil station. A similar thing occurs when I pull the rubber band off the bottom of each bundle, and again when I stuff it, stem-first into each smaller bag. The task is not going so well, but the air smells wonderful. Then one of my coworkers casually remarks to anothe, "I thought basil was packaged in half-bags?" Oops. The Basil Novice must start over. Also, they're supposed to go in leaves first, with the stems sticking out the bottom of the bags. People I am here to tell you that basil does not want to go in any half-bags. Not stem-first, not leaf-first, not through stuffing, not through shaking, not even through a combination stuff-and-jiggle, where, as the tops of the basil plants pass through the narrow bag openings, many smaller leaves shoot straight into the air with a merry *fwirrrrrrrrrrrrrp!*, settling around me and my co-workers like a fine mist . People, basil is animate. It fights back.

I had to stay late to finish wrangling the basil into bags. I didn't have time to weigh them, so I put them back into the walk-in cooler with an appropriate label. And although my mighty snarky streak threatened to rear it's snappy head, the label said simply: "Basil. Bagged. 05/20". All of which was true, but none of which accurately reflected the mighty conflict which had just taken place in the Produce section.

The things we do for baked goods. At least I can honestly say that I worked last Friday at the Co-op.