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David is an occasional blogger, software engineer, Nintendo fanboy, liberal, news magazine addict, voracious TiVo user, and bibliophile. He was born in St. Louis, grew up in southern Indiana, and returned to St. Louis to attend Washington University. He hasn't managed to escape yet. He's a fan of free wine tastings, too many tv shows to name, and eating out. David makes his living developing web applications used internally by his employer. He doesn't blog about work because he's heard too many stories about that causing workplace troubles. There's more on the about page. |
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26 August 2002 - 11:00 pm
There are three grocery stores near my apartment here in St. Louis: ghetto Schnucks, college Schnucks, and ritzy Schnucks.
Chris has already mentioned the craziness of the ghetto Schnucks on his site, and everyone at WashU is familiar with the 24/7 characteristics of the Schnucks on Clayton, so I thought I'd talk about my trip to the ritzy Schnucks in Ladue.
The first thing I noticed about the ritzy Schnucks was its high rent neighbors. One of the other buildings in the shopping center was a Barnes & Noble and another looked like a gourmet dog treat store (further investigation needed on that, however). Anyway, once I reached the Schnucks parking lot, it was very clear that my Toyota Echo was the smallest and cheapest car in a parking lot full of Lincoln Towncars, Cadillacs, and a variety of foreign cars with German names.
When I finally parked and made my way in (my parking process was interrupted by an elderly lady and her daughter, both of whom seemed to think that walking down the middle of the parking lot very slooooowly was a good idea) I realized that the people in the parking lot were not an aberration. By stepping into the store I had managed to lower the median age of the ritzy Schnucks shoppers by at least 10 years. The only people around even approaching my age were the employees manning the registers. A very different experience from the Clayton Schnucks, which always seems filled with freshman trying (usually successfully) to buy beer and other alcohol.
Once I got over my shock at the age, I noticed something else. The ritzy Schnucks was playing classical music over the PA system! It was crazy. All these old people were pushing their carts around to the sound of a piano concerto. Again, I was struck by the comparison with the Clayton Schnucks: there are always so many people there that I would never have noticed if they were playing any music, classical or otherwise.
All things considered, I would rank my visit to the ritzy Schnucks a success. I managed to negotiate my way around the elderly folks fairly well, enjoyed the eager-to-help attitude of the employees, and loved listening to the soothing sounds of classical music while I shopped.
Oh, and ritzy Schnucks was much, much cleaner than any of the other Schnucks stores I've been to.
Posted by on 26 August 2002 at 11:01 PM
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