Milk and Cookies: For the Love of Industry

TVL, Pete and I had a few cocktails at Twin Peaks on Sunday evening after catching Milk at the Castro Theater. We found ourselves sipping a few with a trio of charming old queens - one of whom owns Hot Cookie, the neighboring bakery and fuel station for meth weekends. With a little persistence I was granted a "behind the scenes" sniff around the cookie factory (joie! produktionsmittel!). The employees were baking novelty macaroon bars and rice crispy treats. You might imagine how some of these confections offended my uptight and sexually repressed Catholic sensibilities (my word!).

Once our friend the owner was out of earshot this young Barbara Ehrenreich got the scoop on the working conditions: $10 per hour and tips ($15-$30 per six hour shift), obviously no benefits apart from San Francisco's "universal" health "coverage", plus average weight gain of 10lbs within the first month of employment. Typical non-union service sector! It's worth a mention that the bakers did seem relatively happy to work at the cookie factory, even in our most candid moments. Constant elevated glucose levels to the point of hyperglycemia could also account for this behavior.