When bad things happen @ the store

I have a story to share about a bad thing that happened to me at the store not too long ago. Picture me in line at Walmart after my monthly stocking-up trip...groceries, tp, soap & a few other things, all loaded onto the conveyor belt heading toward the cashier. Then, the cashier picks up a bag of flour the lady in front of me is buying and it bursts! All over the scanner and the beginning part of the belt. The cashier swings it away and flours the entire bagging carosel too. I wait, holding my breath to see what she does. She calls for someone to get a new bag of flour and continues to scan and bag the other items. Doesn't make a move to clean up after what she's done and they are waiting on the new bag of flour. It comes, gets scanned and the lady pays. Still no clean up of any sort as the cashier begins to scan and bag my items, before the first lady has even turned to walk away!*

My instincts kick in and before I know what I've done, I turned, gave a slight smile to the guy behind me, said "excuse me", backed out of the line and walked away - right out the door and went home.

The question in my head was: what if I let her bag up all my stuff and take it home? A vision of hours cleaning my car out where the bags had been, cleaning off each package before it could be put away and feeling "contaminated" for a long time after that overwhelmed me. After all, I haven't allowed gluten (outside of a rouge muffin or hamburger a guest brought with them) in my house for over 3 years. This is a gf zone!

I was mortified by the time I got home, thinking I could never show my face in that store again after leaving $200 worth of stuff on that belt. I felt rude for doing it and like a wimp for not stopping the cashier and asking her to clean up the flour before she started my order. I also felt angry that she didn't have the sense to do it. Gluten free issues aside, it's not nice to send customers home with stuff covered in flour!

So, what are your thoughts? Any similar experiences to share?

P.S. I almost always use self checkout now :)

On a related note, I saw this story: Truck Spills - Flour: http://bit.ly/chLWFh. What a nightmare!!

*on principle I hate it when they start scanning your stuff before the person in front of you has even turned to walk away - it's really rude! How hard is it to wait 15 seconds for her to put her wallet away before you start the next?