#63, Focaccia Guy.

Focaccia Guy was a strange, quiet Asian man in his early 40s that used to come into the bakery. He always had a plastic grocery bag hanging from his wrist (what was in there?), and sported an odd wispy growth of facial hair around his mouth and chin. He wore thick-rimmed glasses, khaki pants, and an old blue windbreaker. That was it. Every time i saw him, same thing– grocery bag and all. (Even once outside of work, when i spied him on a BART train: all exactly the same.)

He used to come in every couple of months, sometime in the early afternoon, and check out the pastry case.
(A small bit of background info, highly pertinent to our story: We made four plain focaccias, every day, and then something like ten each of the two topping-laden varieties. But only four of the plain.)
One of two things would happen next, depending on our available supply of small, round, tasty Italian bread rolls:

1) Upon seeing that we had sold even one of the plain focaccias, Focaccia Guy would simply turn around and amble out the front door without a word or a glance. Later, man.
2) If we had all four plain focaccias left, though, it was on. He would order all four. We would place them into a paper bag for him, whereupon he would take them over to the table, carefully lay his plastic grocery bag down on one of the chairs, and stand by the window eating each and every one of his four plain focaccias, slowly and methodically, out of the bag, one at a time.

This was always such a hoot to witness, for some reason. There was something so... mysteriously necessary about this man's need for flour, olive oil, and rosemary... As my co-worker used to say, "i guess he's just deficient in focaccia!"
i have adopted this phrase today for any time i am craving something, like salt, or chocolate, or the occasional impulse purchase of something gross, like Pop-Tarts. Or you know, when you ingest something and you can tell it is going straight to work in your body? Like you actually needed it at that moment in time? Yeah. You were just deficient!

The weird thing was: why would he not perform the same ritual with even three of them? Why did it have to be four? i guess i just answered my own question, actually, by using the word "ritual".
Hope you're still heading in to the bakery, Focaccia Guy!