Grampi Bob vs. The Good Cheese

This is the amusing family anecdote of our Grampi Bob versus The Good Cheese.

My mom, Patti, is a retired ski bum living in Colorado. Her spunky ski/SCUBA/bike/hike boyfriend Bob Kearful is a handful. He's got more energy than a basketful of mice, more physical coordination than a twenty-year-old, and more sly brains than a pack of wolves.

We call him Buffalo Bob or Grampi. The two of them have all sorts of adventures, but none more hilarious than last week's encounter at King City Market…

Mom is a fantastic cook. She and Bob are both health-conscious and loaded with free time. When they eat, they eat organic or top brand or both. But you wouldn't know it to look at 'em. They're ski bums, remember? Bob likes to wander into the grocery store wearing a pair of shorts over his long underwear and sneakers, plus a ratty black coat and his SSHS cap, which stands for Steamboat Springs High School. With his elfin smile and bright eyes, he can look like an escapee from the loony bin… And I say that with love and respect, Grampi.

Last week he walked into the store looking for a snack. Not just any snack. We're talking QUALITY.

Unable to locate the primo deli section, Bob approached a corpulent fellow in a blue smock who was restocking loaves of bread. In his sixties, this guy looked like an employee who'd been around the ol' turnip truck a few times and knew every inch of the store.

"Excuse me," Bob said. "Where is the good cheese?"

The employee looked him up and down and said, dubiously, "Are you gay?"

What?

My intent is not to set off a firestorm debating gay rights or to sneer at Small Town Heartland USA. My question is: What the heck was going through this employee's head that he would make such a remark regardless of how Bob was dressed? Was his remark a condemnation or an invitation?

Bob laughed at him and found my mom, who'd found the cheese.

Meanwhile all of us are still marveling???? Is cheese code for something we don't know about?????