Let me start out by saying that OH MY GOODNESS I HAVE MISSED THE OLD BLOG! School started for teachers on the 1st and students on the 8th. Then Tater Tot started Junior Kindergarten at his new school on the 17th, and our lives have been crazy I tell you. Just crazy. Anyhoo, I'm glad to be back and I soooo appreciate the sweet comments and emails. The eight of you who still read Tales are the best.
Allrighty then. Sunday night David told me a bit of news that made me sadder than I've been in a good long while. It appears that my dear, dear, wonderful Schnucks has been bought out by -- gulp -- Kroger.
Let us pause for a moment of silence.
...
My love affair with Schnucks began about four-and-a-half years ago when Tater Tot was a mere, well, tot. After too many times of shopping at the Kroger close to our house and experiencing the rudest employees known to man, I made the switch and started driving a whole eighth of a mile farther to Schnucks.
I've never looked back.
The store is always clean. The food is always fresh. And the people... Oh sweet heavens, the people. Many of the employees have been there at least since we started shopping there, and most of them since way before then. We've gotten to know each other over the years. They've watched Tater Tot grow up (as much as one can grow up in four years, but still), and when we took Small Fry for his first grocery shopping trip, three cashiers came over to see the new baby. If I pop by the store alone, the first thing I'm asked as I unload my things from the cart is where the boys are.
It feels like a small-town grocery store in the middle of a bustling city, and I just hate for things to change. And change they will.
They boys and I did our weekly shopping Monday afternoon and as we entered the store I knew that something was very wrong. The produce department was next to bare. There were huge empty gaps on the shelves. I went to the meat counter to have pork chops cut. Nothing. In the dairy department there were no eggs to be found and only a few random bags of cheese were left.
We passed several employees on our trip around the store, and as always, they smiled and asked how I was doing. I couldn't help but respond that I was very sad. They all nodded in agreement. They are sad, too. It appears that the buyout came as somewhat of a surprise. Their jobs are not secure, and many of them have to interview to try to keep the jobs they've had for years.
I hate the thought of walking into the same building in a month and not seeing these sweet people.
Adding insult to injury was that, because they're unable to stock so many of the things I needed, the boys and I were forced to stop by the aforementioned Kroger on the way home. I felt like such a traitor.
The store has been remodeled since the last time I was there. It's very bright, very nice, blah, blah, blah. But the unfamiliarity was nearly overwhelming, and I couldn't help but shed a few tears as I searched for the asparagus. Pitiful, I know, but true.
Our cart loaded with what we needed, we headed for the checkout lanes. As I remembered from times past, all were full and had lines. We waited about 10 minutes to reach the cashier. There was no "Hello." There was no "Did you find everything alright?" There was nothing, other than the physical renovations, to make me believe that anything had changed since I stopped shopping there years ago.
I'm hopeful that Kroger will redeem itself and keep the Schnucks employees, but I fear that's wishful thinking.
So as of this coming Friday, my Schnucks will be no more. It's as though an old friend were moving away. And as we all know, good friends are hard to come by.
(Sigh.)
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