Some folks have no idea how to act in public. Shoppers share the most obnoxious thing they saw a customer do in the grocery store. Content has been edited for clarity purposes.
Not The Most Sanitary Way
“About a month ago, I was shopping at Walmart in the dairy department. There was a lady in front of the yogurt I wanted, so I waited nearby. Apparently lemon is a popular flavor in her household. She grabbed every container she could reach. When she spotted more on the top shelf (out of reach), she lifted her three-year-old daughter out of the cart, who was barefoot, and clearly without a recent bath, based on the long hair in tangles, and held her up to grab the others.
When the daughter couldn’t get to the ones at the very back, and mom couldn’t hold her up anymore, she told the girl to climb onto the shelf. Bare feet landed on the containers below and hair got caught on the top of the case as she shoved her head and shoulders onto the shelf.
The mom took home every single container of lemon yogurt — all 23 of them. As she started to walk away, I mentioned she could probably have asked an employee if she might buy them by the case. I didn’t add ‘without creating unsanitary conditions for others.’ I did let an employee know about it and they threw out the front row of containers and cleaned the shelf. But I was left wondering how many other ways she had behaved so selfishly and without regard for the problems she left in her wake.”
He Thought No One Would Notice
“I was standing in line to check out. There were three other people ahead of me. A woman at the front of the line pulled out her wallet to pay. As she slid out her credit card, I noticed a $20 bill fall to the floor. I was about to say something, but then the man behind her kneeled down. I was sure he was retrieving it for her. Instead, he pretended to tie his shoe, picked it up, and, with quick glances around, stood up and slid it into his pocket.
A few seconds passed as I was shocked by what I just witnessed. Apparently, nobody else did notice, so I decided to say something.
I suddenly found myself saying, loudly so everyone heard, ‘Are you SERIOUSLY going to take that lady’s money?!’
The lady at the front turned to me and saw who I was looking at. I could feel the eyes around us do the same. It got quiet. I swear there was a solid five seconds where we just stared at each other. Then, he took the bill out of his pocket and handed it back to the lady.
He said, ‘Sorry, I saw it when I tied my shoe. I thought it was mine.’
She took it back with a quick ‘Thanks’ and wheeled her cart towards the exit. The man only had a few things in his handbasket, so he quickly finished paying and left.
When I got to the register, the cashier started with the typical pleasantries and asked, ‘What was that about?’
‘His shoes weren’t even untied,’ I said with a smirk.
The cashier just laughed and said, ‘I’m happy you saw that.’
Inside, I was quietly preparing myself for a confrontation. I figured this guy might hold a grudge. He looked the type, with the stare he gave me. I finished paying and wheeled my stuff to the exit. My situational awareness was cranked up. I got to my car and unloaded, put the cart away, and left without incident. I even paid attention to any cars that might be following me home.
Thankfully, nothing happened.”
She Went Crazy For The Cheap Chicken
“The local supermarket included a hot table where they sold hot cooked chickens for $10.99. It was a good deal, and I would get one occasionally. The pack included a cardboard handle for easy carrying.
One day, I noticed how whoever had labeled the latest batch of chickens had made a mistake. Instead of $10.99, they were labeled as $0.99.
I thought ‘Cool! Cheap chicken!’ But I knew better. I liked the folks there and quickly let the lady in the meat line know. The chickens had only just come out, so no loss to anyone. Except, I was not the only one who had found it.
A woman of, how do I say this, limited intelligence saw it and began screeching at the top of her lungs, ‘Chicken for a buck! CHICKEN FOR A BUCK!’ Then she began loading her cart.
The manager arrived right at that moment, apologized, and began to correct the matter. The woman went ballistic; screaming, shouting bloody blue murder, and accusing him of stealing and trying to starve her to death.
She screamed, ‘The price is 99 cents darn it! I deserve chicken for 99 cents!’
The manager, in an effort to ease the situation, agreed. He told her, ‘Alright, since you ‘found’ the error, you can have a chicken for 99 cents.’
There was a long pause as the woman looked dumbfounded. Then she launched herself at the table, screeching, trying to grab every chicken she could possibly get her hands on. Chickens were falling everywhere and spilling onto the floor. The manager tried to intervene but it made no difference. She was grabbing, stuffing, and howling it all. It was a disgusting display of a complete lack of dignity.
She was taken out of the store in handcuffs without her 99 cent chicken. The entire batch of roast chicken was destroyed.
All I could do was shake my head.”
Handicapped Parking
“Last week, I parked in a handicapped space, put up my placard on my rearview mirror, and began to look through my wallet to get my shopping list. Before exiting my car, a crazy, furious woman began pounding on my window demanding I step outside.
When I got out of my car, she started to scream at me.
She yelled, ‘You took the last handicapped spot! You can obviously walk, so what handicap do you have?!’ Then a whole bunch of profanity and insults before I put my hand in her face and stopped her.
I told her, ‘While I appreciate your vast, educational vocabulary and your misguided thinking that my handicap is any of your business, I hope you are at least competent enough to have noticed the medical bracelet on my wrist when I threw my hand in front of your distasteful face and venom-spewing mouth. Before you begin screaming at me again, I am epileptic, which lawfully allows me a handicap placard and to park in a handicap spot.’
She replied, still cursing and screaming, ‘You’re abusing the system! The spots are for those who need a wheelchair or other people with visible health problems.’
That was enough for me. I explained in the most general and easiest way that epilepsy was a seizure disorder due to the brain receiving misdirected signals. And should this happen to me, the opening of a store had more people that could come to my aid faster, read the instructions on my bracelet, and get me the help I needed.
My final response was, ‘I hope I have educated you not only on epilepsy but also how not all handicaps have to be visible to be legitimate. If not, you should probably move your sweaty, ugly face away from me before my epileptic brain receives misdirected signals to beat your ignorant behind.’
Polite. Not so much. Her reaction? Speechless. Mission accomplished.”
She Didn’t Want To Miss Her Big Date
“Back in the early 2000s, I managed a grocery store. One evening at about six pm, I was standing in the customer service booth and watching the front end. I saw a woman walk past the counter, wearing only a pink robe, pink slippers, and her hair up in a towel. Not your everyday sight to see.
I watched her turn down one aisle, so I followed her to talk to her. She was causing quite a stir dressed like she was. As I turned the corner of the aisle, I saw she’d pulled up a cardboard box (the stock guys had set it out to stock shelves later) and was sitting on it shaving her legs.
She’d picked a razor and shaving cream from the shelf and proceeded to just sit down there and use it. While she was in a grocery store full of customers.
As I approached her, she started apologizing. She said, ‘I’m so sorry! You see, I have a big date tonight. I need to shave my legs now or I’m going to be late.’
Then she went back to shaving her legs.
I said, ‘You can’t shave have your legs in here. Or dress like that. There are kids here. Do I also need to remind you that you didn’t even pay for any of these items you pulled from the shelf and are currently using?’
Her response, ‘I only need just a little bit for my legs. Chill out, I’m going to put it back when I’m done. Besides, I can’t even buy them. I didn’t bring any money with me.’
Then she went back to shaving her legs. By this time, I was concerned she was either not okay or had been drinking so I called the police. When they came and talked with her (while she was still shaving her legs), they made the decision to take her to the hospital to be checked out to make sure she was okay.
I’m pretty sure she missed her big date.”
“His Hip And Back Were Sore”
“Last year around May, our shopping centers, similar to those across the world, were packed with customers and empty of items. Well, one day my dad, who’s in his mid-60s, was doing his daily grocery shopping in our local Woolies. He was minding his own business when some other guy rammed his trolley into him and knocked him flat over.
He then proceeded to yell abuse at him, along the lines of ‘That’s what you get, you old hag! Stay outta my way!’
Now, hitting someone and being a prick is enough to boil anyone’s blood, but it doesn’t stop there. My poor Dad was left to struggle off the floor for several minutes with the other customers ignoring him and his pain. There was no humanity left in those crazy times; not even the workers stocking shelves stopped to help.
Thankfully, since my dad was a regular, he knew most of the self-serve checkout ladies. So one of them left her position to help him off the floor. She then reported the incident to her manager on shift, and he got given a discount on his shopping as an apology.
And just for closure, my dad was perfectly fine. His hip and back were sore for a few weeks, but there was no lasting damage.”
What A Leech!
“Our local version of Costco is called PriceSmart. Isn’t that a clever name?
A lady in front of me, at the queue to cash, decided she was cleverer than me and all the fine people employed at PriceSmart. You see, to shop at PriceSmart, you have to be a member. You do this by purchasing a membership subscription card which allows you a year of membership. For the average Joe, it’s a tad costly ($265) but the savings you get shopping at PriceSmart, more than makes up for it.
I’m a very economical shopper and I tend to purchase only the bare necessities. However, I would treat myself to something nice only once in a blue moon. This lady in front of me had a cart piled with groceries and also several treats ranging from frozen salmon burgers, Lindt, Toblerone and Mars chocolates, smoked almonds and ribs. Clearly she was not a poor lady.
When we neared the cashier, she suddenly turned around to stare me in the eyes. This is the conversation that followed.
Lady: ‘You don’t mind if I use your card, right?’
Me: ‘For what?’
Lady: ‘To cash.’
Me: ‘You don’t have a card?’
Lady: ‘No. I can’t afford it.’
I then stared at her pile of groceries tethering at the edge of her trolley. Her bottle of Grey Goose bottle was almost $300 but she ‘couldn’t afford’ a $200 (at that time) membership.
Me: ‘It’s only $200 for the membership. It takes just a minute to sign up.’
I saw her face suddenly transform into a look of complete irritation. It was as if I was asking her for the favour.
Lady: ‘I don’t have the money right now. I just told you. People need to help each other.’
Me: ‘Well I can’t lend you my card.’
Lady: ‘Why?’
Me: ‘Because I don’t know you.’
Lady: ‘You need to know me to help me?’
At that point, I remained silent. I didn’t want to call her out for attempting to use random strangers for her financial convenience. I didn’t want to argue how I spent my hard-earned money on this membership and she ought to make that sacrifice also rather than gorge on her four rotisserie chickens as it was not my place to say. Instead, she went to the man in front of her, giving him a sad story of how she just lost her card and this stuff is for her mother. The guy took the bait and lent her his card.
She then stared at me as if to say, ‘Got anything to say now?’
Clearly, this wasn’t the first time she did this and it definitely wasn’t going to be the last. Some people may not see the big deal of what happened there but to me, she is trash: a selfish and cheap opportunist. She is a leech on PriceSmart (who generates a profit from membership fees) and on the good people around her who make the necessary sacrifices for the greater good.’
Was It Really A Service Dog?
“I went to a grocery store late one evening. There was a couple there with a large dog. It did not have any indication of being a service dog. The couple was giggling about having brought their dog in without notice.
The dog urinated against a shelf. This was cause for great laughter for the man and woman. The couple proceeded to continue with their shopping as if nothing happened.
I pointed out to a store employee how the dog had urinated so it could be cleaned. When the couple reached the checkout line, they were told one of them would have to take the dog outside the store.
I have three dogs and I am an animal lover. However, it really irks me when people bring their dogs into places where they are prohibited and don’t belong. It makes me even more upset when I notice seemingly fraudulent “service dogs” accompanying people into stores.”
The Loss Prevention Guy Got Involved
“One time while stocking the cases, I found some chicken that had been eaten hidden in one of the refrigerated cases. I sighed and thought to myself, ‘Why didn’t you just throw it away?’
Now I had to check all the meat packages near it to see if they might have been contaminated. So, I walked over to the deli to give them the chicken box back, so they could mark it out. But when I was heading there, I saw another box of chicken that had been opened with partially eaten pieces of chicken in it. I grabbed it and started looking at other things in the deli case. I found opened bottles of juice and other items of stuff partially eaten or drank from.
I remember seeing this one person riding around in an electric cart with some of the items that I had just found in her cart. Plus a bunch of other things, like donuts, snacks, and other things. I went over to the packaged donuts and found a couple of opened packages. So I grabbed those off the shelf.
When I contacted our loss prevention people, they came over and looked at what I had found. I told them my suspicions. It turned out they were aware of the lady in the electric cart. She was known in our store and other stores in the area for doing just that. Plus, she had another disgusting habit that I had stumbled across as well.
She would go into the family bathroom and not bother with the toilet but use the floor to relieve herself. Thankfully it was just urine and not the other stuff.
The LP (loss prevention) guys finally caught her grabbing stuff, eating it, and then putting it back or putting it somewhere it didn’t belong and then leaving the store. If they didn’t catch her leaving the store, she could claim she was planning on coming back and paying for all the things. Since she left the store, and there was enough stuff taken and used, we called the cops on her.’
Wet Hands
“One time on Father’s Day, I was getting a card for my husband and was standing next to someone who sneezed into his hand. He then reached for a card to read. His hands were wet.
I saw the card he put back a couple of minutes later. I was glad it was a ‘dad’ card. I wasn’t looking at those but was still grossed out how someone else could have done that. I almost didn’t buy a card but liked the one I had picked up.”
“Excuse Me, I’m In Line”
“Years ago, I had worked all day at a nursing home. I stopped for groceries and had gotten in line at the grocery store. I was behind someone with two heaping full carts, so I knew it would take some time for them to check out. So while I was waiting, I realized I had forgotten an item.
So, I ran back to retrieve it. When I returned, I found my cart shoved off to the side, and a little old lady standing in my place.
I said to her, ‘Excuse me, I was in line here.’
Her reply, ‘It is against store policy to leave and make people wait.’
I pointed out, ‘The line hasn’t even moved.’
Her response, ‘Well, that’s too bad.’
I wedged myself back in line in front of her. After a few minutes, she began purposely hitting me with her cart.
Finally, I snatched up a can, made myself as big as possible (I’m 5′2″), brandished it at her, and told her, ‘If you do that again, I’m taking you out!’
There ended the confrontation.”
Crying Girl
“I was in the produce section of Kroger, in Houston. I heard two young girls (one was maybe 10 years old, while the other one was 12 years old) giggling. When I turned around, I saw how the older girl was poking her fingers/thumbs into all those beautiful tomatoes on the vine. I couldn’t believe my eyes.
I watched as she did a few more, and then loudly said, ‘What the heck are you doing!?’
She was shocked, started crying, and ran to her mother on the next aisle. I followed.
I said to the mother, ‘Do you know what she was doing? She was poking holes in the tomatoes!’
The mother’s response, ‘But you made her cry.’
I said, ‘Good, She’s crying because she got caught.’
The mother only said, ‘But you should not make her cry. That’s wrong.’
And proceeded to ‘comfort’ her brat. I walked over to one of the produce guys and told him what happened. He just shrugged and shook his head. He didn’t want to get involved with the bawling kid and her weirdo mother.”
Yuck!
“While shopping, I saw a woman shaking a bottle of salad dressing in a grocery store. I, at first thought it was odd, but maybe she wanted to see if it mixed up well. When I was further down the aisle from her, I was trying to get something at the far back of the lowest shelf. It was not cooperating, so I got up.
As I straightened up, I glanced at her and gasped. She had taken the cap off and was sipping the dressing to see if she liked it. Then she moved down the line to another to try it. Yuck!
I found a couple of clerks that were working on a display, so I told them what was going on. One watched the crazy lady, while the other one got security. I went back to shopping, after telling one of the clerks if they needed a witness, I’d be in the store for another half hour or so.
As I was finishing up, I heard a couple of women talking together, saying something about some woman being made to buy a dozen or more bottles of salad dressing.
They looked up at me when I said, ‘HA! GOOD for the store! Serves her right!’ Then I rolled my cart away.”
Different Store, Same Crazy Lady
“There was an older woman in the produce section who was opening all the sealed bags of grapes and picking out the ones that she wanted and just leaving the rest. She would move on to other products and open up bags and just choose the perfect ones. She was spending maybe 30 minutes on a bag of grapes. She was agonizing over each grape, carefully inspecting each one.
I mentioned to the assistant store manager about this. He knew all about it but didn’t want to do anything about it. A few days later, I was in the store and she was doing the same thing. Again, I complained.
A few days later, I was in a large department store. There was the same lady opening up packages of women’s pantyhose and checking them. She probably opened ten packages. I would think that most women would not buy a package of pantyhose that had been opened. So she destroyed ten pairs of pantyhose.
I haven’t seen her at the grocery store in a couple of years. Hopefully, they told her that she couldn’t come in anymore.”