How Did She Make It To Old Age Making Choices Like This?!

I work in a big box department store. Mystery liquids on the floor are just part of life. You find them, you get them cleaned up.

I was on my way to a break when I spotted a short trail of drips of some sort of reddish-pink liquid on the floor. For a larger spill, I would have guarded it and called a coworker over to bring me some paper towels, but for just some drips, I decided to take the ten or fifteen steps in the other direction to grab the towels myself.

As I came back, I saw an elderly lady with a walker about to step on a cluster of drips.

Me: “Excuse me, ma’am, please be careful. There’s something on the floor there, and I don’t want you to slip.”

Customer: “Oh. Thank you. I didn’t see it.”

She looked down at it. Then, she bent down and started smearing one particularly large splatter with her finger. I was a bit alarmed. I had no idea what this stuff was, and some of the chemicals we sell are toxic, or even caustic!

Me: “Ma’am, please don’t do that!”

Then, she tasted it.

Yes. You read that right. She stuck her finger in her mouth to taste a mystery liquid from the floor of a big box store.

Customer: “I don’t know what it is.”

Me: “Uh… I don’t, either… but I’m here to clean it up…”

Customer: “Oh, all right.”

And she continued along her way.