Plain Pasta Is Plainly Too Much

(My coworker told me this story. He works in the prepared foods department inside our grocery store. They deal with cooked foods and specialty salads. This woman comes up to him to order some pasta salad that contains pasta, tomatoes, cheese, and a light sauce.)

Customer: “I want the pasta salad, but I don’t want the tomatoes and the cheese.”

Coworker: “Being as that would just leave the pasta, it probably would be cheaper for you to buy some pasta and cook it.”

Customer: *snootily* “I don’t cook! Now, hurry up!”

(My coworker complies and the woman leaves with her pasta salad. Five minutes later, she comes back.)

Customer: *still snootily* “Does this pasta have sauce on it?!”

Coworker: “Yes?”

Customer: *gives it back to him* “I don’t want it!”

Coworker: “Okay.”

(My coworker then goes to scan it out and throw it away, as is store policy for anything that leaves his department’s counters. The woman notices and scoffs.)

Customer: “You’re throwing it away?!”

Coworker: “Ma’am, I have to.”

Customer: “Why can’t you just put it back with the rest of the pasta salad?!”

Coworker: “Ma’am, that is cross contamination—“

Customer: “That’s just a fancy word for throwing it away.”

Coworker: *exasperated* “No, ma’am, it’s our store policy. We can’t put it back in case someone tampered with it and then returned it. How would you like it if someone got some pasta salad, returned it to us, we put it back, and it turns out the customer who brought it back had eaten part of it?”

Customer: *ignoring what he said* “Well, you shouldn’t waste food! People are starving out there!”

(The woman huffed and left the store.)