The Most Entertaining Crime-Adjacent Stories From Publix, Grocery Icon Of The Southern United States

From Redditor /u/letsgomarauders:

Had a lady come through last week, and I'm ringing her groceries and she grabs a candy bar from the rack, opens it, takes a bite, and says she doesn't like it, [then she] hands it to me, and says don't charge her for it. I was like "WTF?" for 15 seconds trying to figure out what I just saw and what she said to me.

I stopped and said, "Ma'am, you ate it, I am going to charge you for it."

She replies, "I didn't eat it, I took a bite."

I replied back, "You can take your receipt to the CS [customer service] desk and they can refund the price back to you," as she had me throw it out. I work in a tourist-affluent area and they think they can just get away with crap like this.

From Redditor /u/wolffangz11:

An elderly lady paid her ~$30 order all in singles.

She apologized and said, quote, "Sorry, I did a bit of dancing the other night."

From Redditor /u/Pecola2011:

One time I was ringing up a lady and I notice a middle-aged man behind her with eight-packs of strawberries on the belt. He says to me quite plainly, "When you get to me, I'm going to steal these strawberries." I think to myself for a second: what's going on.

I continue ringing up the lady before him while discreetly scanning this other guy up and down, looking for a gun or some kind of other weapon he might be concealing. I strongly consider getting my manager involved as he steps up to my register. I cautiously proceed to scan his strawberries while eyeing him like a hawk. The strawberries ring up as two for $5, and the man excitedly shouts, "What a steal! You can't beat that!"

From Redditor /u/Swysp:

I have this lady who comes in every now and then, and she is so extremely bizarre that it's always an adventure. I was ringing up her groceries and she says, "Stop me before we get to $100." So we end up at $97 and change, and the only item she has left is one of those four-pack wine drinks.

I inform her that the drinks would put her over, and she sighs before saying, "I guess it wasn't meant to be... unless you want to buy them for me." I waited for her to laugh, but it never came. She just kept staring at me as I tendered her $100 bill.

From Redditor /u/himeeusf:

The corporate campus is a certified protected natural habitat. The city of Lakeland either gifted or [was] temporarily housing (can't remember for sure) a bunch of swans at our large pond in front of the building. For those of you who don't live in Lakeland - this is a big deal. Swans are the city mascot and are very well known and loved.

Between the gators and a hurricane that blew through very shortly after their arrival, it ended in disaster. Some were eaten; some were disoriented by the storm and wandered into the parkway to be hit by cars; and the rest just disappeared. I believe they lost every single swan within a month's time. (Bonus horror: the adorable otters that used to live on the pond are also no longer around, presumably [they were] also gator snacks.)

From Redditor /u/waterpolo125:

I was cashiering like usual and begin to slide some ground beef across the scanner and it reeks. I said to myself, "This must have gone bad." I guess not, because the lady who was after the meat person said that it was definitely sh*t (she said she worked in a hospital). The smell began to grow and fill the store, a raunchy smell it was.

I don't know about other stores, but our bathrooms are right next to the emergency exit. The man who defecated himself decided he didn't want to take a walk of shame back through the front lobby, and [he] bolted out the emergency door. The alarm went off and everything. Talk about trying to keep it on the DL [down-low]. Also there was sh*t running down his leg and on the floor in front of the bathroom... good times.