Clydesdale at Schnucks

I was surprised, when I stopped by Schnucks yesterday, the pictured Clydesdale was holding court in front of the grocery store. This signature animal and his brethren are key aspects of one of the local brewer’s marketing campaign. When Anheuser-Busch’s Clydesdales come to a town it is always a big deal. It is a big deal here in Saint Louis too. It just occurs way more frequently here. This one is not quite big enough yet for beer wagon duty, but worked well in a petting environment. And yes dear Jane, there was free beer being poured in the store.

That’s not just any pony, that’s a Clydesdale, the biggest animal in the world!

The preceding statement was heard uttered almost thirty years ago. Anne and Bill, et al. had come to visit Saint Louis. I took them on the brewery tour. As a good host, I think that I offered to pay for their tickets. On our tour was a threadbare woman, possibly homeless. She quietly kept to the back of the group and only uttered this one statement, when the tour visited the brewery’s stables. In the hospitality room, she waited until all of the tourists were served, before she asked for her one beer. Back then the hospitality room was in the middle of the tour. I guess to give people time to sober up again. This woman elected not to accompany the second half of the tour and ducked out.

When I die and find myself in front of the pearly gates, I expect Saint Peter to tell me, I cannot enter heaven until my other half arrives. I don’t say my better half, because we are all equal in the eyes of the Lord. Phbbtht!

“Stop by and see me when you get in Dahling.” This text was on my phone, when I checked it this morning. It turns out that it wasn’t for me, but for my wife. Kris the school secretary had sent it to Anne. Last month, I offered to upgrade the iOS on her 3GS phone. The process required an iTunes login and since Anne didn’t have one, I used mine. Now her texts are mine and mine are hers. Isn’t that how marriage is supposed to work? What is most annoying is that whenever I send a text to her or she sends a text to me another text is sent to ‘this phone’. We already share a checking account, email address and a marriage bed, but this texting thing is a bridge too far. We’ll have to go to AT&T.

Speaking of our joint checking account, we are still working our way through the aftermath of the Schnucks credit/debit card hack. On Wednesday, Anne updated her bank card PIN. On Thursday, with the hot breath of a Clydesdale breathing down my neck in the checkout lane, my PIN was invalid. Today, with Anne’s PIN it worked just fine. Confronted with these facts, she said, “You’ve had that PIN way too long, it was time to change it.”