Yeah, exactly. IOW, I would like to get the exact same behavior as doing this:

a = sess.query(A).options(eagerload('c')).first() foo = a.b # triggers eagerload of c

A handful of the codepaths where I'm querying for the objects are generic functions that service queries for many different classes for other parts of the app; the gist of all of them is this:

def generic_query_pattern(sess, class_, pk): # ..generic logic I wish to reuse.. instance = sess.query(class_).get(pk) # ..more generic logic involving instance.. return instance