Munchie Mart Profile (title needs work)

The Munchie Mart convenience store stands at the corner of Stadium and Lovell, with its walls plastered with advertisements for liquor, beer, wine, and kegs. Situated between the student ghetto and Kalamazoo College’s campus, in close proximity to Western Michigan University, a number of students elect to purchase their night’s entertainment. During the daylight hours, empty parking spots await occupation, creating a cracked asphalt desert with a few wanderers. At night traffic increases dramatically, as cars filled with students, line the perimeter of the building. The hustle and bustle does not only consist of proprietors of the store, but also a contingency of homeless soliciting sympathetic passers by for spare change, who oftentimes take their panhandling to the windows of parked vehicles.

Inside the store, handwritten daily specials decorate the wall above the refrigerator that houses 40 oz malt liquors, and smaller packages of beer. At the back, behind a glass door littered with cardboard Milwaukee’s Best cut-outs, sit the dirty thirty packs anticipating purchase by some barely legal co-ed. Walking up to the counter, a wall of fifths line the shelves, shouting their worth to anyone willing and able to spend some extra money on alcohol. Organized by type, the bottom-shelves have an extensive collection of Burnetts, Popov, Five O’clock, and any other inexpensive poison. The bottles, both composed of glass and plastic, leave gaps between the edge of the shelf and the container’s edge, leaving the wall with a sloppy and disorganized appearance. Despite advertising wine on the outside of the building, the limited selection does not inspire the wine aficionado.

Confiscated identifications garnish the side of the door frame, sternly cautioning an underage person attempting to use a fake for a purchase. Cashiers are encouraged by the State of Michigan to question and take suspicious ID, by an incentive program that pays the store $10 for every one acquired. Under the front counter sits a guidebook for determining the legitimacy for driver’s licenses issued in the United States. The contents of some employees drink discolored and wrinkled the pages. The manager of the store had come in to pick up a keg for delivery and he told the story of his latest capture, in which the kid with the fake chose not to memorize any of the information. When questioned about his supposed address and birth date, none of which he could recall, he offered nothing except excuses and pleading.

Similarly to the store, the backroom does not suggest an aura of organization. Empty returned kegs line the periphery. Boxes filled with cans and bottles, mostly of the beer variety. Store policy allows the return of containers with a limit of $5 per customer. This keeps the store attendant from filing away hundreds of dollars of bottle returns that likely come from a college kegger. Rather, it’s the homeless who bring with them bottles diligently collected around various parts of Kalamazoo, in order to obtain a meager sum of $0.10 per can.

The types of people coming to Munchie, seem like night and day, as different as the times they frequent the store. Nick Curwen, 22, cashier says, “alcoholics buy booze during the day with change from collecting bottles from the night before, everyone else buys at night with credit cards.” He works on Fridays from 6 p.m. until 2.am and on Sundays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and experiences both spectrums within 48 hours. Fridays are filled with a barrage of drunken college antics, contrasting greatly with the crowd on Sundays. Curwen jokes, “There are the church-goers, followed by the bums at noon with their bottle returns and change for buying pints, and the college kids returning empty kegs.”

Bottle returns at Munchie Mart annoy Curwen. Each type of beer belongs in a box earmarked by brand, then filed away by hand, highly more arduous than the electronic variety found in grocery stores. A cleanly dressed man, with black pants and a shirt tucked in, with a sweater draped around his shoulders in the fashion of a golfer at a country club, came into the store carrying a plastic bag of bottles. Since store policy dictates that bottles kept in garbage bags will not be accepted, the man left the store and climbed into the dumpster, and returned several minutes later with a cardboard container.

He complained for a few minutes about the policy, and upon finding it fruitless proceeded to pool his money together in order to make his purchase. He eyed the liquor on the back wall, but decided that a pint of Arrow Peppermint Schnapps fit his price range. The man smiled as he left revealing a massive gap in his teeth. “Have a nice day, and remember about the boxes,” Curwen said, then after the man left he remarked, “I’ve started brushing my teeth so much more now that I work here.”

A few moments later, the next customer entered the store. Donning shorts with the words St. Martin tattooed on the fabric across her butt with a matching Under Armor tee-shirt and her eye make-up lining her under lid as if her face had rubbed into her pillow for several hours, she brought with her a half barrel keg from a previous party. Like the man before her, she needed money her deposit back. Her demeanor appeared shy, but irritated that someone elected her to take care of the errand. Curwen punched the proper keys on the register, the drawer opens, and he hands the girl a $10. She gave the typical goodbye, in a polite manner, and exited the store immediately, buying nothing.

Spending a little time at Munchie Mart, shows the spectrum of people living in Kalamazoo, brought together by one store. Within it, one sees the social stratification that exists in the community, even in the size of the deposit of returns from two customers on a Sunday. Curwen commented, “When I don’t have money, I don’t buy cigarettes. Sure it’s sad that people are homeless, but I almost feel bad selling them booze and cigarettes when it only makes their situation worse.” He describes regulars that come into the store, with the same shift, week to week he notices the people that shop and despite appearances they share more in common than meets the eye. Most people don’t go into Munchie to purchase Taquitos or soft drinks, but rather highly taxed items to help people escape from their lives for a couple of hours.