As our friends at the St. Louis Egotist have already pointed out this week, Apple will be re-opening their St. Louis Galleria location in new bigger digs. It will be Apple’s biggest mall-based store ever, topping out at 6,000 square feet and will feature a new “Genius Lounge” area in the front of the store equipped with free WiFi and cute little emo Apple chicks that will convince you to buy another iPad (“Ok so you have one right? …now think about if you had two!” “Shit, that’s a good point. Sold!”) while you wait for your genius appointment.

I’ve never been to a mall this early before in my life.

It’s 6:45am and I’m walking in to the West County Mall with a b-line for the Apple store.  The glass front of the Apple store is shrouded in darkness with black curtains covering the front of the store while I can only assume the little Apple elves are scurrying around sprinkling the last bits of magic dust on the iPads. I will be only the third person in the “reservation” line, but counting the other line of unwashed “no reservation” people I’m probably closer to the 30 or 40th person total. The guys ahead of me are claiming they were in line at 11pm last night, which at the time I found hard to believe. Later on I found that the two of them and their dog slept in a car parked in the mall lot and walked in when the mall opened at 5am.  An hour later I find out that one of the two guys ahead of me is just along for the ride, making me the second iPad purchaser in line. So close to #1! I don’t feel bad being bested by the guy though, he has waited in line for the iPhone and Xbox 360 previously. He’s a pro.

Its little secret that the Punching Kitty staff are a fan of Apple’s fine line of luxury computing items, so in case you were wondering, we are picking up an iPad Saturday.

In fact, we will be at both St. Louis area Apple stores!  Why? To get an iPad of course and to hang out with some St. Louis Apple-heads. The plan is to hit the West County Mall Apple store bright and early, around 7am, and then after getting through that line, heading over to the Galleria to see the crowd there!

We hear East St. Louis alum and Olympic athlete Jackie Joyner Kersee stopped by the West County Apple Store the other day to make a purchase.

We hope she came in the store just like she is in that photo to the right.