Thursdays

Brain still fuzzy from my 3am alarm, I strain to add decimals as customers shove vegetable upon vegetable in my face before stashing them away into the recesses of their various bulging market satchels.

From behind the stall, time passes quickly as I watch each customer carefully-- taking pleasure in picking out the shy shoppers from the brazen ones, the chatty from the quiet, the slow from the speedy. I get better at classifying them at first glance as I spend more time behind the table:

1) The easiest to identify are the herds of moms who come, strollers and all, to browse the freshest organic veggies to feed to their munchkins.

2) Then, the old ladies who like to spend fifteen minutes ensuring they have the best bunch in the pile.

3) Also easy to pick out are the tourists, who poke around speaking in foreign languages to their American friends who are busy stocking up for dinner.

4) Relatively easy to identify are the chefs' minions who always come prepared with notebooks and large crates, tasting every vegetable before committing to large orders.

5) A completely different breed of their own, and by far the trickiest to locate, are the high-end chefs themselves. They come in all shapes and sizes, and are often disguised as the most inconspicuous of shoppers. Some of the friendlier ones choose to come behind the stall to chat while others sort quickly through the table, picking out only the best. Like chameleons, they can be spotted wearing almost anything: from dressy button-up shirts and black pants, to top-of-the-line sports gear, to ratty sweatpants with heaving hairy bellies and Birkenstock sandals.

My favorites, however, span all sorts of these so-called "categories". It's the ones that I get to know over the weeks -- each Thursday talking about a different vegetable that needs to be cooked or another grandchild that learned how to walk -- that I end up appreciating the most.

The most regular customer is Lan, the fiery Thai divorcee who loves hanging out at our stall for hours on end, picking through the produce for eternities. Rain or shine, she comes and talks up a storm, going on about her children or her latest dinner and usually complaining loudly that the best men are always gay. Her sharp bob bounces around as she sorts through the veggies and loudly bosses the other customers around, rattling off recipes if anybody asks about a particular vegetable. She squints at each piece of cabbage or squash or at every bushel of beets through her glasses, scrunching up her nose and tilting her chin forward slightly so that she can see every vein and crevice. When she's satisfied with an item, she absent-mindedly holds it in your face (no matter if you're deep in conversation with another customer) until you finally place it in the special pile behind the table that she has come to establish for herself.

But despite her often exasperating behavior, I secretly look forward to her splashy arrival every week. Sometimes bringing some of her delicious food for us to try, she always barges through with a completely confident air, never failing to take away a large amount of produce with her as she scurries away for the week.