Hey Gretel, bread crumbs would be easier to clean up

[Monterey Jack]

Doing the clean sweep at work today, found the usual trail from a leaking bottle of milk snaking through about seven aisles before petering out...doesn't anyone actually check their milk before throwing it in their cart?! I always use the "hold upside-down for a five count" before I buy a bottle...it's the easiest way to find out if the seal around the top is loose. How do people manage to go that far without noticing the morse code white dots left in their wake (and the occasional small pool where they stopped their carts for a minute)? Why don't other customers say anything? Christ...

[raudf]

I had to tap the shoulder of a really old man who was mostly deaf and let him know that his milk was leaking... he was just happily ambling along looking at his list, not his cart.

[Smapti]

There an alarming number of people who don't realize that urethane milk jugs don't have an airtight seal on the top. If you lay that thing on its side in the cart, it will leak.

Following milk trails from the cooler to the shopper is a daily occurrence at the Store. It almost becomes sort of a Holmes-ian experience in forensics, since you can determine from the distance between the droplets where it was that the shopper was in a hurry, where they stopped to peruse their options, and so forth.

[EvilEmpryss]

Could have been worse.

One time, many years ago, we didn't realize that our baby daughter had such a bad case of amazingly scent-less diarrhea that it had filled her diaper to overflowing, dripped all over the items in our cart, and left a trail thru the store. Seriously, we didn't notice until I stepped in it and slipped.

We did offer to clean it up, but I think the people at the store saw how frazzled we were at that point and felt pity for us and took care of it themselves. That, or they just wanted us out of there before we made even more of a mess. But we did offer to clean it up.

[raudf]

That, or they just wanted us out of there before we made even more of a mess.

No, it's more a case of liability and insurance.

I had to explain this to a parent who wanted to have their clean up the mess they'd made at the Mart of Wals I worked at. Insurance covers peon... err, employees doing it, but not customers. Believe me, I was all for letting the kid do it, but... yeah. I did thank the parent for offering, though. But we found a compromise, I would explain in detail what my job was, while I cleaned, so the kid could see how much work I had to do.. the kid was wide-eyed at the end and apologized without parental prompting.

And then had to relive the moment, when my 18 month old vomited his way through the back part of the store... Fortunately, my mom was with me, so she could alert a store associate. I offered to clean what I could.. got turned down for the same reason. Mommy memory becomes useless...

[Marmalady]

Doing the clean sweep at work today, found the usual trail from a leaking bottle of milk snaking through about seven aisles before petering out...

I feel your pain. That is one of my biggest, most rampant and roaring hatreds, the 'long, long trail a-winding' Had one of those yesterday - one of the guys on the Fresh department had actually seen the guy with the leaky bottle and stopped him, so at least it was only a couple of aisles instead of the whole dratted store.

[notalwaysright]

While we don't sell as many things which are prone to leaking, I have followed the "trail of coffee" over multiple aisles. You see the initial spill, then the carts which are driven through the spill. Did none of the people see, or did they just not care? Once I followed a sticky trail which ended with an abandoned cart with a soda can (who opens a CAN in a fabric store?) left in it.

I have also followed the trail of crackers left generally by babies/kids. I guess if you shop for entire days at a time, you stop caring whether it's appropriate to allow your kid to throw food everywhere. And yes, they are easy to clean up, but still annoying. Unless it's suckers or gummy bears. Less easy. Though it's not all kids. I once saw a lady with a snack size package of Cheez-Its eating a few and then touching fabric with the same fingers.

[Kogarashi]

The last Walmart I worked at, we had the trail once too. Someone who'd bought a bag of either birdseed or kitty litter (I don't remember, just that it was small grains of something from a large bag). It apparently ripped, and they tracked a winding trail through half the store from the pet department up to the registers. I guess that's where they finally noticed (or were finally close enough to an employee for them to point it out), and one of the CSMs was grumbling about having to sweep up the whole thing before other people kicked the mess around.

[WishfulSpirit]

I will cop to not checking milk for leaks. However since we get almond milk (hubby has issues with lactose), it comes in cartons. Those seem less prone to hidden cracks than jugs.

[Kogarashi]

I will cop to not checking milk for leaks. However since we get almond milk (hubby has issues with lactose), it comes in cartons. Those seem less prone to hidden cracks than jugs.

I also tend not to check milk for leaks. It's only bit me once when I got to the register and the cashier pointed out that one of my two gallons of milk had a milk level about two inches lower than the other. I didn't notice any evidence of drips in my cart or on the belt, so the cashier and I both figured the leak had happened back in the cooler somewhere.