Food shopping as a way of social connection

I used to love grocery shopping--all those possibilities! It has become a task to be accomplished in our ever more complicated life. However, I still look forward to going to our food co-op. No matter what time of the day or night, any day of the week, I am guaranteed to see several people I know--good friends if I am lucky and not in a hurry, and at the very least, people who remind me why we live here. Today I saw our 4H leader, a woman who used to be in my La Leche League group when I was a Leader, she is now a Leader herself, a neighbor, a homeschooling friend and his family and an old co-worker. I also saw lots of people I just recognized, from farmer's market, biking, store employees etc. The choices we all make about buying locally, buying organically, buying IN to a co-op are some of the things that make us friends. Eating food certainly brings people together, why not shopping for it too?