Major Announcement

[yogi]

I understand fully the tradition of tossing your waste onto the movie theater floor. As I said it was natural and kind of a fun thing to do when I was a kid. But growing up in a clean house made that movie theater experience seem odd. When I was dating we found a yuppie centric restaurant called The Pickle Barrel. They had some amazing food there, and a small barrel of pickles on each table for munching while you are waiting to be served. In addition to the pickles the waitress brought a basket of peanuts, also for munching. You were frowned upon if you did not toss the shells on the floor. That particular tradition was as fun as the movie house but more dangerous. Walking on a floor covered with peanut shells isn't the safest thing to do.

I suppose high tech has taken over most professions. At one time I had to use a restroom at a gas station. It was an amazing room in that it seemed to be all stainless steel. I don't think the toilet itself was, but it might have been. I recall mentioning my amazement to the clerk who explained it's a self-cleaning room. Once a day the door gets locked and the room gets hosed down from an internal spray. I believe steam and disinfectant were used with a final rinse of hot water.

Nothing is as good as it used to be, and that is true for watermelons too. I don't know the story behind Black Diamond but it seems like the kind of thing that could be trade marked giving the producer the option to call anything they choose to be Black Diamond. I have a favorite canned tomato I like to use which is imported from San Marzano, Italy. They go through a lot of trouble to certify it's the real thing, but you can buy San Marzano style tomatoes just about anywhere. They are not the same. In order to be sure you have the right tomato you need to look for the seal of authenticity (DUP) placed on the can in San Marzano, Italy. That's not always the best method because there are a lot of similar looking seals. The true test is the price. An authentic important can of San Marzano toms is two to three times more expensive than the domestic imitation.

[Kellemora]

If they have concrete floors, which many do, the peanut shells just add grit, so shouldn't be slippery.
We had a few restaurants like that here, but it was declared a fire hazard and they had to stop.

I hit one of those bathrooms last year or the year before when I was driving out to the Cumberland Plateau to pick up one of Debi's relatives who's car quit running. It was towed to a repair shop, which was next door to a huge gas station with over two dozen gas pumps. Their bathroom was like that. I didn't peek into the stall area, but saw all the rows of swinging nozzles up high, and more down near the floor. I must say, it was sparkling clean in there, hi hi.

Down here, Grainger County is noted for their tomatoes, which they ship fairly long distances, mostly to restaurants.
All of them are hand picked, graded, and packaged by hand too.
There are a couple of large tomato farms where they use machines, but then the tomatoes are used for sauces, so they can be mishandled big time, hi hi.

[yogi]

Speaking of great tomatoes of the domestic variety, I had the opportunity to taste a Mennonite grown tomato a couple years ago. One of the landscape people I hired lives in Warrenton just down the road a piece from the Mennonite farm out there. He was good buddies with those people and at times the beneficiary of a bumper crop. His buds would give him a basket or two of tomatoes just because. Well, for reason's I do not know he brought me a sample one day. It wasn't as spectacular as the imported Italian variety I favor, but it was the best tomato I've had in all they years I've lived here. Not only did it taste good, but it kept well, and I do mean well, in the fridge after I cut into it. Once in a blue moon Schnucks will have Mennonite tomatoes but they are as rare as those Black Diamond melons for the most part. I can't say how they compare to the Granger County ones you know of, but I'd be willing to drive to Warrenton to buy a bushel if I were the kind of guy who canned tomatoes.

I don't recall what kind of flooring was at the Pickle Barrel Restaurant, but I'm guessing it was all wood planks. That's the kind of place it was. I've only been there a few times and the peanut shells were still on the floor during my last visit. No doubt some do-gooders made them stop that at some point in the past.

[Kellemora]

I do know the folks out at Grainger where we buy our tomatoes in bulk have changed what variety they grow every few years.
They basically said, we can only raise what we can buy to raise, they are all locked up by those who raise for seeds.
In other words, controlled hybrids. But I guess when you are in the business, you have to rely on having the best available each season that produce the most abundant crops without other problems.
At least numerous seed suppliers still have gmo free jet star tomatoes, and a few gmo free supersonic for sale.
They were the two very best varieties for raising hydroponically. And for smaller gardens where you don't want ALL of the tomatoes to come in at once, like commercial farmers, hi hi.

There are only a couple of small places I eat out at when I can. One is our little RoundUp Restaurant, and the other is a buffet type of diner, which I think the local one is now closed except for catering. I don't get out much anymore anyhow!
Just if I'm on my way home from a doctors appointment will I stop somewhere to eat, that's not a fast food place.

[yogi]

You are more or less at the mercy of your suppliers when you run a big business. Today at Schnucks I was reminded of their corporate underpinnings in an odd way. In general their produce is fair most of the time. I'm a big apple fan and realize fully how apples grown last summer are available in the middle of February. I shop three stores for my apples and Schnucks most frequently has the worst quality in terms of bruised and damaged. Those that might appear good on the outside are dehydrated and off color on the inside. This is not their standard stock, but it happens way too often when I compare the quality to Dierbergs or Fresh Thyme. Today I grabbed a nice looking HoneyCrisp and my finger poked trough the skin into a mushy interior. Not a single HoneyCrisp in the bin was unblemished. The sad truth is that if you want Schuck's apples you have to buy what they have on display or be without. I can see bad apples showing up in the best of stores every so often, but it's a very common thing at Schnucks. Because those other stores don't have that particular problem, I know it has to do with the source of their produce. Definitely an inferior source.

The other thing that caught my attention today was the frozen food. Schnucks handles Green Giant, Birdseye, and their own Schnucks brand. There are a couple other smaller brands but those top three take up 80% of the shelf space. Today I noted Schnucks brand takes up more than half of that 80%. You don't suppose they are trying to push the company brand for some reason, do ya? Well, bad apples and in house brands might all be a sign of the times, but there is more to it than that when it comes to Schnucks. Looks to me like they are in financial trouble. Yes inflation must be hurting them with less sales albeit more expensive sales. But those other guys don't seem to be bothered much by supply issues or prices of their goods.

I suppose to be fair about it I should go see what WalMart and Target are selling too. I can get anything I want, which isn't much, from Target online but I rarely go into their store to shop. Walmart ... I think I was in there looking for something back in 2016.

[Kellemora]

I hate to say this, but Schnucks produce aisle has always been ten times worse than Dierbergs.
I think a lot of that has to do with the ways Schnucks buys, ships to their central warehouse, and then to the stores.
Whereas Dierbergs, although they do have a central warehouse, things like produce are delivered straight to the stores.

If you check the expiration dates on canned goods at both Schnucks and Dierbergs, you'll see there too, Schnucks dates always precede Dierbergs dates.

I'm not a big fan of Walmart, we do get a few things there, but not much. Walmart here is priced high compared to other stores in our area. And of course our UGO stores are always the cheapest in town, and their meats are fresh too.
UGO carries a lot of things no other store has, some closeout items, and a lot of discontinued items. Like when Coke discontinued their Yellow Cap Coke in cans, UGO took all they had in their local warehouse, and were selling it for 4 bucks a carton. The Diet Rite pure zero cola I get from them is only 3.25 per carton of 12 cans.
Many of our stores here, regardless of what they carry, have many empty shelves being taken up with more of another product so the shelves don't look so bare.

Most of the other name brand stores are out in West Knoxville, which is way to far to go for shopping.

[yogi]

I know there was such a thing as a produce market up in Chicago. Maybe there was even more than one. They catered to the business community mostly but somebody told me you could buy direct if you walked into their warehouse and paid cash. The story was that there are several grades of produce. I am certain you even described such a system of grading. It's pretty obvious that places such as Schnucks buy low grade produce. The issues involved with distribution probably add, or take away from, the quality as well. There was one store up north where the produce was exceptionally good all the time. Being consistent like that struct me as odd. Where did they find all that high quality produce? It probably came from the same place that sold low grade produce but at a higher price. Well, if they were higher in price it wasn't by much because I didn't notice it at the checkout counter. So, I'm sure something like that is going on here in O'Fallon. There likely is one or two major sources of produce, but each store has their own buyer, and that buyer caters to the whims of the store manager. Schnucks has empty shelves once in a while, but they also sell a few things I can't get elsewhere. Or, they did. We had something like a UGO when I first moved here. It was an awesome grocery store that sold things cheaper than the rest of the town shops. They went out of business a few years later.

I can't say much about WalMart prices here in Missouri because I don't shop there. They were the cheapest grocery stores up north. The variety of goods offered at WalMart is attractive, but much of what they sell has to be purchased in bulk. That's fine for most items, but I don't need 5 pounds of apples just because they are on sale for $5.00. WalMart won't sell me just one apple ... Schnucks will.

I was told I have dry eyes and should be using eye drops daily. Apparently that diagnosis was correct because when I use artificial tears they don't itch and I can see better. I don't recall what a very small bottle of those eye drops cost ... seems like $15 or so. Fortunately I can get away with some OTC drops, but I know how expensive they can get when prescribed. Wife had to use a few different kinds when she had cataract surgery.

My wife of many years is pretty good at researching things, probably not at the same level you are on but she does find good deals quite often. She found this place that sells prescription drugs at cost and thought you might be interested. It's possible you already know about these guys and have the full scoop. I offer it here to you just as an FYI. If it helps in any way, that would be a bonus. https://rxoutreach.org/

[Kellemora]

It's a bummer your discount store went out of business. What is now UGO (United Grocery Outlet) used to be called Bargain Barn and folks went there for over 40 or 50 years. The store passed down to one son, and then later to his son's sons. And that is when they started growing and opening more stores.
However, the downside to that is, with growth comes higher prices and more things to choose from. And now that they put in a fresh meat and fresh produce section in each store, those prices are not as low as they used to be, but the goods are better quality.
Grainger County Tomatoes have a common price among grades, the culls are 10 bucks a box, the next up is 12 bucks a box which is what we normally get for making canned tomatoes. Then their three top grades are 16, 18, and 20 bucks a case. After driving all that way to get the 12 dollar cases, of which we usually got four, I decided to get an 18 dollar case once. The taste, flavor and juice wise was the same as the cheap ones, they just look prettier and were slightly larger. The 20 buck a case ones only go to certain restaurants they have on account. 18 bucks go to the stores, and 16 bucks go to places like UGO, Aldi, etc.
They only sell the cheap cases to those who come and pick them up like we do. And if they still have any left, they go to a packing house for only 6 to 8 bucks a case, before they go bad on them.

I really don't know how the WalMart down here stays in business. They never have what you went in to buy, and even if they do, the price is too high for the stuff. They are cheaper than Kroger on most things, but not all things. Things they buy in massive bulk quantities are cheaper than anywhere else, but then too, the quality is much lower on nearly everything.
I bought a sports jacket at WalMart for 8.99, and picked up another just like it for 12.99 at Meier's Sporting Goods store.
Both were the same brand, same style, same color. But if you studied them closely, the one from WalMart had less stitch rows in areas like around the snaps in front. But three years down the road is when the difference became really apparent. I'm still wearing the one from the Sporting Goods store, but all the elastic died in the one I got from WalMart, and it was worn the least of any of my jackets.
Someone else we know had bought an automatic coffee maker from a store like Dolgins and they liked it so well, they bought one for their daughter at WalMart, again, same make and model. When the one they bought for their daughter died, her dad brought it home to fix, and was surprised when he opened it up.
The one they got from Dolgins, has the heating coil inside a ceramic plate with grooves for the coil. The one that came from Walmart had a tin frame of 4 metal supports with only a tiny insulator in the tin to hold the coil up, and the coil itself was of a finer wire. That explains why it heated up faster, but also why it didn't last as long. Dad put a new coil in it and got them going again for another year or so, hi hi.

The three different drops I had to get for after my first eye surgery came to like 80 bucks, not covered by insurance.
I hope there is enough in the bottles to get me through the second surgery a week later, but if I use them 3 times a day on two of them and 4 times a day on the other, it doesn't look like there will be enough. Surely don't want to run out of them either, so I'm now pondering on if I have to buy a second round of the same drops.

I've been buying a few of my prescriptions from discount places already, often for less than half the price.
The only problem with doing that is, they do not get credited toward my annual deductible.
I have a few very expensive drugs which are covered under Part B Durable Equipment, so even though I do have to pay for them up-front. Walgreen's sends me a check when they finally get paid from Medicare and/or my Supplemental.
Some of the OTC drugs I take, I'm getting for as low as 88 cents for a months supply.
Others are like 1.29 to 3 bucks, instead of 6 to 12 bucks at WalMart or Walgreen's.

[yogi]

You are right about WalMart cloning regular products but to their specifications. Everything looks the same but the model numbers are slightly different. They may append an alpha at the end, such as in model 200z. I tried getting service on a Garmin GPS system and they turned me down because it was a "special" WalMart model that they didn't guarantee. I had to take it back to WalMart if I wanted it fixed. In that case I went to some other place and bought a TomTom without a special model number.

While I have not been inside a WalMart store in ages I have ordered from them online. The same problem exists there as you noted shopping in house. They are out of stock and the price changes when and if they restock. Their online prices are generally cheaper than the rest, but it pays to shop around a little. Some items can be had cheaper elsewhere. About the only way to defeat them is to not patronize them. The reason their stores are still open in your town is because they get enough customers to be profitable.

I once bought two pair of shoes from WalMart for $12 a pair. The idea there was to alternate wearing them so that they would last a little longer. They did last a few years of summer wear but I could not replace them for $12. Not at WalMart anyway. So ... I bought New Balance instead and paid well over $100 for a single pair. The NB shoes are nearly 10 years old and doing well. That doesn't mean they are a better deal. I could get three or four cheaper pairs from Walmart that would last just as long as the more expensive brand. Plus, I'd have new shoes every three years. But, in this case the NB shoes feel a lot better on my feet so that I considered that worth paying the high price.

I kind of figured you have your drug vendors all sorted out by now, but just in case you missed something I thought I would give you the link. The drops purchased outside the plan might not count for the deductable but they are a heck of a lot cheaper and you can get more of them for that same $600, or whatever the deductable is. On a positive note, those out of network drugs also do not count when calculating the donut hole either.

[Kellemora]

A lot of chain stores that sell appliances, and advertise, "We will not be undersold," may have the exact same items with one minor change, like a handle design is all, but they each have a different model number.
This type of things was even going on in the early 1960's when my uncle worked at Knapp-Monarch.

Because they now only have ONE checkout counter, they are losing business big time here now too.
I guess they are trying to condition people to Work-For-Free. So they won't complain when they have to start unloading trucks and stocking shelves for free.

When I was an electrician, several of us went and bought a pair of boots at a WalMart store near where I was working.
At that time, this brand and style of boot sold for around 49 bucks, and WalMart had them for 18 bucks each.
And they were not made cheaper for WalMart. I wore them things for probably 15 years, but I did put car tire treads from the Space Saver Spare Tires on them, like most of us electricians at the time did. Those boots never wore out, and the leather never got hard (if taken care of that is).
We did find out why WalMart had them so cheap. The manufacturer was moving and sold their entire warehouse of boots to WalMart. A different style went to each of the WalMarts, and the one near where we were working ended up getting the style we all bought. You have to be careful when buying steel toed work boots, because some places only use cheap tin, which is not rolled down, and can bend down and cut your toes off.

Debi always lands in the donut hole around the end of February with her Insulin and other meds. So while in that donut hole, she has another place she buys from and also manages to get some of her most expensive drugs for free while in the hole.
Me, I've never hit the donut hole, mainly because my most expensive meds fall under Plan B Durable Equipment, so does not add to pushing me into the donut hole.

[yogi]

WalMart is pretty good at what it does. They do a lot of market research to find the cheapest vendors on earth. Just about all their clothes come from some country other than our own because of the lower labor costs. I've heard stories like the one you bring up where WalMart will buy an entire warehouse full of goods if the price is right. They used to be skimpy with the pay and benefits they give their employees too. All of that adds up to lower operating costs and they do pass it on to their customers. The problem I have with all that is not the price but the quality. They modify top selling products and sell them cheaper because they are in fact of lower quality. The shopper at WalMart is well aware of all this but is attracted to the low prices. They don't care that much about quality.

The trend I've noticed in many big stores is to automate the checkout lanes but to never totally eliminate the manual till tarts. The robots are a PITA if you ask me but there are exceptions. Home Depot has it all figured out and makes the self-check an easy process. This automation, of course, eliminates the cost of checkout personnel, which in turn lowers the costs of doing business. Places like WalMart hire people in a generic sense. When you work there your job is to do everything a non-manager can do. That includes stocking shelves, sweeping floors, and running the cash registers. The more experience you have the higher your pay, but that isn't saying much. The pay scale was pretty narrow last time I heard and there virtually are no benefits for new employees. Only the old timers get those, and most people leave before they become old timers. Again, this is what WalMart does best. They know how to keep the costs down. And it does work because several other companies follow their lead.

[Kellemora]

Sam Walton would turn over in his grave if he saw what has happened to his Legacy.

The early WalMart stores were really something fantastic and amazing.
Sam was smart, he started each of his stores in rural areas where there was no other shopping available, except for perhaps a mercantile store and farmers seasonal markets.
He was usually cheaper than the stores in the cities, and everything was made in the USA and of reasonable quality. After all, he did have competition from Mail Order Sears catalogs.

You may not know this, but Self-Serve gas stations are still 10% less on their gasoline prices. This came about in order to even get them to be allowed in the first place. It took years of negotiations with the government and insurance companies. Since the people would be doing their OWN dispensing of the gasoline, that 10% discount was to cover their labor for doing so.
You don't find this at the other stores that are adding self-service checkouts, which is much more work than pumping gas.

Personally, I won't use a self-checkout!
Nor will I stand in line if more than 3 people are already waiting in line.
I tell them open a register and take my money, or put all the stuff in my cart back on the shelves, your choice!
Ironically, the few times I did this, they did open a register for me.

[yogi]

I recall the big deal being made when gas stations began the self-service approach. It meant a lot of jobs being lost, but it also meant that the gas stations could stay in business by reducing their costs. It didn't bother companies like Exxon, Standard Oil, or Shell because they were big enough to take a loss, but more importantly they controlled the prices at the pump. The laws that were pass were to protect the independents and small business operators who eventually all got bought out be the big oil companies. The government mandated 10% discount actually increased their revenues and decreased the competition.

Grocery stores have the same problems with labor costs and they operate on a much smaller margin than most other businesses. The generally accepted business practice is to reduce staff when you need to cut costs and that's what those robotic checkout lanes are all about. They don't give you a 10% discount for bagging your own groceries because they are not forced to do it like the gas stations are. Say what you will about the costs of doing business, but any reduction in costs rarely, if ever, gets passed on to the customers. That too has become a de facto business model accepted by just about every business in this country. It's called greed. Those grocers do have rewards programs that will give customers a discount on certain items. The price you pay for that is to allow them to store records of your purchases and personal information so that they can sell marketing databases for a profit that far exceeds the discounts the pretend to offer.

You make me laugh at times with the stories you tell. Sometimes I think you are the quintessential Grumpy Old Man. LOL I bet all the shop owners within 50 miles of your house know exactly who you are.

[Kellemora]

I know that law is still in affect for gas stations, because my cousin still owns an independent gas station. He has both regular full-service pumps, at a higher price of course, at his station self-serve is 20% below full-service, but 10% below the normal price. In other words, self-serve is the expected discounted price like all the other gas stations, but his full-service is 20% above the normal price. Gasoline taxes are the same regardless of the sale price of the gasoline. He used to buy from the Mobil run at the refinery, but now buys from the non-exclusive brand runs. Each chain gas station has their own additives added at the refinery so they can claim something the others cannot, hi hi.
It's interesting what you can find out from folks who know what goes on at the refineries.

Back home, for along time, the price for using a credit card was more than paying in cash, but some law stopped that.
Which is probably why so many stores issued their own discount cards. So they can sell your buying habit data.
I actually don't mind the self-service kiosks at fast food joints, because you can study the menu, punch the item you want, add which condiments you want on it, what side orders, then pay. More often than not, it is faster, and your food is often ready by the time you go up to the pick-up counter.

I've also shopped at a store that had a scanner on each shopping cart, you scan the item as you place it into the cart. When you get up to the counter with your cart, they must weigh the cart on that plate in the floor. There is a tag on front right side of the cart, I guess this is so they know which size cart you used. Then you can pay with a CC or get a cash pay ticket and stop at the cash register stand on the way out the door. Had to laugh the first time I shopped their. On the screen it came up and said "Remove your Purse from the cart please!" It wasn't a purse but my O2 tank I had sitting in the cart, hi hi. The sign already said remove your hands from the cart. I guess some things are so light and cheap they don't know if it is in the cart or not, and don't care. This was at the new Three Rivers Market by the way. They only have the one store, and it is now really fancy compared to how they first started.
Oh, one other funny thing there. The lady in the lane next to us got a message on her screen to remove the potted plant from her cart for a second. So I guess it does weight fairly accurately, and it knows which things vary in weight.

I often buy whole cases of things when I go shopping, and the self-serve machines are not geared to handle such purchases. And I'll be damned if I'm going to take each item out of a case and scan it individually, or slide it down their scale individually.
When I used to go in and buy from 24 to 48 of the same item, I would be directed to the self-checkout, and every time, a person still had to come and do the transaction, because it won't let people do their own that way. Or didn't back then.
I think now they have a way to do multiple purchases of an item, but you still have to set ONE of them on the scale.
So my shopping there must have caused them to make some changes anyhow, hi hi.

I also see a few stores around here taking out a few of the self-serve and putting regular checkout counters back in. So I guess all is not hunky dory with that system. If you want to me guaranteed having to use a normal checkout, just buy something with alcohol in it, like beer or booze, hi hi.

[yogi]

My wife loves the self-checkout and I detest it. When we shop together we use separate carts just for that reason, unless it's more practical to use just one cart. In those cases I stand back and let her do the robot interactions. Schnucks has a bay of these self-checkout machines. There is one way in and one way out. On the way out is a mean looking store employee who has been watching what you are doing, and will come to your aid should the robots call for him. There is something to the weight scheme that is very interesting. Next to the scanning station are two shelves with two bag holders on each shelf. A metal plate is under the bag, and now I'm thinking that must be a scale of some sort. When you scan something and it accepts the scan, the robot will announce that you must place the item in the bag. The bag, of course, is sitting on this metal plate. If you do not bag your item, it will not allow you t scan the next item. So ... I'm there packing the bags for my wife of many years and decided to take an item out of one bag and put it into another. The machine almost had heart failure. It wanted my wife to "PUT THE ITEM IN THE BAG" or else. It was put in the bag, but I removed something before that happened and screwed up the whole system. That mean looking dude hanging out at the exit had to come over and punch in a few codes to get the machine to comply.

I don't mind arguing with you. But, I refuse to argue with a stupid robot at the checkout counter.

I suppose there could still be a few full service gas stations in existence. Nobody said you had to convert, but it was a smart thing to do from an economics point of view. Don't know about Missouri, but up in Illinois all the independent stations got bought out by the Big Oil companies. They all had to change their name in the process even if the owner retained the property. I think that's called a monopoly, but it turns out there are three or four big time oil companies, not just one, that own the Chicago market. When the switch to self-service occurred almost all the stations offering auto repair stopped doing that. They installed mini grocery stores and junk food dispensers in their place. It never was clear to me why they did that because like the full service feature to pump gasoline there still were a few that did automobile repairs service - very few. Also rare and a mystery to me are those stations that sell pure gasoline with no alcohol (or lead) additives. I was told there is one around here about twenty miles from my house. There doesn't seem to be a law that says you must add alcohol, but everyone does it. Or nearly everyone.

[Kellemora]

I still hates those confounded machines at grocery stores, so I don't use them. Besides, Debi does ALL the shopping now, hi hi.
and she only uses them sometimes, when she's in a hurry and only has a few small items.

Those machines also want you to put produce in the same bag with chicken or meat, and they should get in trouble for that.

We have at least three full-service gas stations close to me, 2 are independent, and 1 of those still sells real gas with no ethanol in it. This is where all the antique car guys buy their gas. The chain gas station has changed names a few times, and the full service pumps are on the side of the building instead of out front. They cater to the old folks really well. I finally hit 75 years old so I can use those pumps for 20 cents a gallon less than the higher price they have on the full-service pumps, which is about 15 cents more (after the 20 cents off) than the self-serve pumps. They do ask that you buy at least 8 gallons of gas at the full-service pumps. They only check your oil if you ask them to, they don't check tires unless you have a low one, but they do wash the windshield, headlights, taillights, and often your outside mirrors too.

Besides the gas stations with some Ethanol, we have a few that have pumps that say E85 on them, but it is rare to see a car at those two lonely pumps. All stations here have Diesel. If you want Leaded gasoline, you have to go to the lawn mower service center to buy gas, hi hi.

[yogi]

To be honest I will use the auto checkout robots at the grocery store if I have two items or less and those items have barcodes on them. The machines must also accept my credit card, which all of them seem to do, but not all accept cash. I buy a lot of fruits and vegetables and typically they have tiny barcoded stickers on them which the real till tarts can scan on their machines. The self check bots don't know anything about those stickers and you have to search a menu and type in a hint before the machine knows what you have. I could tell it I have tomatoes and put a watermelon on it and it would not know the difference, but it does know if I put that tomato/melon in the bag or not.

Odd that you would say those robots want you to mix produce and chickens in the same bag. As I mentioned above there are four racks of bags at each automatic checkout station and the machine usually doesn't care which one you use - you simply have to use one of them or else. Just about every time wife shops all four bags get filled with related items so that I can separate things in a sensible way. Just don't go switching things around after you bag it lest you want to deal with the bouncer stationed at the exit.

I thought the cost of living here in O'Fallon was about 20% less than up by Chicago. It is by all measures that I have. Be that as it may, we do not have any co-ops around town nor what would be discount shops, unless you consider WalMart to be a discount store. There is a Dollar General which I've never been inside, however. There are no full service gas stations that I know of and none of the ones I patronize offer discounts to seniors. The only senior discount I get is at the hair cutting place. Judging by some of the cuts I got there, they don't discount enough. Knoxville apparently is more attuned to the low cost of living than is O'Fallon. That's good for most people, but not so good if you can't even afford that.

[Kellemora]

I haven't been inside a grocery store now in probably close to two years. So they could have improved how the self-checkout stands work. Having four bag holders would be great!

Debi's niece learned a little trick with them. They calibrate the scales before each customer, so the machine knows if the stock boy put more bags on the rack or not. She will drop a single banana or onion in a bag before activating the self-checkout machine and they don't seem to be none the wiser about it, hi hi. At least the ones at Food City where she shops.

We have Dollar Tree, where everything's a Dollar, well now $1.25, hi hi. Plus two Dollar General stores. A Dollar Bills, A Dollar & Up, and a new store $5 & $10 like a five and dime only this one is in Dollars, hi hi. They have some really great things in there too. Embroidery Thread which is $3.00 a package at WalMart is two packages for $5.00 at 5&10. The do have lots of toys now that all the TOYS OR US and other OR US stores have closed down, like Babies or Us.

We do have a LOT of Seniors here in South Knoxville, which is understandable since most of the houses here were built around 1944 to 1948. But most of the original owners have died, and their kids moved into their houses, or they are renting out the houses normally to older folks, but not always. The ones that sold to outsiders are now filled with black renters. Which is OK, most of the ones we've met are nice folks.

[yogi]

Our original intent was to live in Lake St Louis. Houses there are pretty much what you describe for Knoxville in that every one we looked at was well more than twenty years old and owned by a senior citizen. That's where my daughter who lived in Clayton at the time suggested we look because it was comparable to where we lived previously. Apparently some sports celebrities live or lived there which gave it some snob appeal. Well, the houses were nice and indeed much like back home, but too much like home. Most would require a good deal of maintenance and several could have used some remodeling. The town of Lake St Louis seemed a little upscale but that's pretty hard to tell from a mere drive by. Being old retired folks we were drawn immediately to the new construction on the north end of O'Fallon. The rest of O'Fallon doesn't seem quite as old as Lake St Louis but every home we saw was at lest ten years old. The not so obvious part of all this is that Lake St Louis is not plain vanilla like O'Fallon. Plus it's a lot closer to Wentzville if I really wanted a Chicago suburb feel.

Furgeson is just down the road a piece from O'Fallon and they were in the news just before we started house hunting. There was a lot of racial tension and police brutality reports which might have been stunning for the locals, but we were from Chicago where that is a way of life. Or it used to be. So when we finally moved in to O'Fallon I had no idea what to expect as far as race relations or diversity in population. To my utter surprise the neighbor across the street adopted a baby who happened to be black. Back then she was the only black kid on the block but today there are two other African American families living right on my street. In all my seven years here, almost eight, I've never heard a disparaging word about black people or seen any signs of racism. It is interesting, however, that the demographics seem to be 85-90% WASP-ish. All I can figure is that in Missouri those other ethnic groups don't want to live with us white folks. They certainly seem welcome, but then, guns are a big thing down here.

Downtown O'Fallon is not Lake St Louis, nor Knoxville. It's definitely down the middle of the social classes and that is both good and bad. It's a very nice and peaceful place, but as I have griped about many times herein, certain things just are not available because nobody would buy them. My wife called it "Plain Vanilla" from the very start, and that has proven to be the case over the years.

That's a pretty clever trick Deb's niece has learned. At Schnucks there are four slots for bags with each sitting on a metal sensor plate. I can't say if any of those bags have scales under them but the scanner area certainly does. Your items for purchase must be scanned and placed on the glass plate before the robot demands you place it in the bag. It never says which bag, but I have confused it by moving things around mid-checkout. I could try the banana trick when the bouncer at the exit isn't looking, or something. Most items have a fixed price that goes along withe the UPC on the package. Produce needs to be weighed and that robot is pretty dumb in that it can't identify those cute little tags they put on the fruit. You have to type in on a touch screen what you are trying to buy in that case. I prefer to wait in line for a live till tart. At least I get a smile and "have a nice day" from them.

[Kellemora]

My son used to live in Lake St. Louis. He sold out and moved because the taxes got way to high there, and they quit taking care of the lake, which slowly filled with dirt until it was only like a couple of feet deep. He was afraid if they didn't do something soon, it would go stagnant and be a royal mess and drag property values down. I think they did dig out the lake again though.
He lived in Cherry Hills subdivision in Ballwin after that before moving to Florida.

NO, you definitely did not want to be in Ferguson for any reason, hi hi. Area went really bad.
It may have changed by now, I've lived south now for over 20 years.

O'Fallon has always been a fairly quiet town. I worked with some guys who took a bus all the way downtown St. L to work each day. Nice fellows! About once every other month we would get together at his house for a friendly game of poker.

There is an upscale store out in West Knoxville with no self-checkout and no registers per say. They have a couple of stand where you can pay if you were not set up with a credit card. Seems you cannot trick their automatic sensors either, buy picking up things so the bar code is at the bottom so the ceiling scanners cannot see them. But apparently it all AI, it knows if you picked up something from the shelf and put it in your cart. It also knows if you took something out of your cart and put it back on the shelf. If you try putting something no the wrong shelf, a buzzer in the shelf system goes off, and here comes an aisle monitor running at you, hi hi. I've never been there, but I hear it is a great place to shop, but a tad bit expensive, but only a little higher than Kroger. Sounds like a place you may want to wear a tinfoil hat too, hi hi.

If you have a Schmartz-Fone and their App, you can see what your ticket shows right away as you place something in your cart.