Okay, now that Open Season on @ekedolphin seems to have ended, I’m going to remind you about the word
They didn’t have the opportunity to speak to a member of the staff.
It I could easily grab some paper towels and throw them on the spill, or do something to prevent anybody from stepping in the mess I would. But I’d try to inform a store employee before doing anything else. The store doesn’t want you cleaning up a spill because you could slip and fall and injure yourself and then their insurance rates would go up.
If the circumstances were right I might follow up with more cleaning but I won’t have a mop there, I can’t clean it all up. And the store wouldn’t want me to try because the situation could get worse if I cleaned it up only sufficiently to go unnoticed but not enough to keep the floor from becoming slippery and dangerous.
If there is one thing everyone should learn from this it is avoid serving yourself drinks because the world has gone crazy and made a spilled soda a matter of great legal, economic, and social consequence.
Maybe not in this instance, although they did apparently have time to “decide just to leave it like that.” But I was responding to what I interpreted as a more general question: “If I spill something in a store, is it my responsibility to clean it up?” “And second, is it my responsibility to clean it up, especially if it was all because of their own faulty cup?”
I.e. IMO, as a general rule, if you make a mess in a store, even if it is absolutely not your fault, it is not your responsibility to clean it up, but if there’s a chance that your mess will cause problems for someone else, it is your responsibility to inform someone about the mess so that they can deal with it.
The next person to use the bathroom is going to be screwed because he was too lazy or embarrassed to tell the staff he’d used up all the TP. That’s fucked up. Luckily the staff member happened to go in as quickly as he did, not an hour later.
I’ve spilled things a few times (not in the last few years). I always ask for paper towels and clean it up.
Once, a small kid ran into me at the checkout lane and I ended up dropping an entire gallon of milk. I saw a mop a few feet away (how convenient). So I grabbed it and started cleaning it up until an employee told me he’d take care of it.
This x 10. I always offer to mop up if they fetch me the bucket and mop and that’s usually declined.
That lady who claimed up the spill could have been anybody. Like the store owner stopping by to check on the store before she dropped off her kid at daycare.
One of the C-stores I worked at had a customer accessible bathroom and some guy went in there, stayed a while then left without a word. Next person wanting to use the toilet opened the door, shut it with lightning quickness and alerted us there was a…problem…in there. Lucky me, I was on bathroom duty that day and apparently the guy who wrecked the place was one of those fabled prehensile rectum people because there was shit all OVER two walls around the toilet. I mean, as in shit smeared on the walls higher than the top of the toilet tank. To this day I don’t know how the fuck that happened because the only logical explanation is that the nasty SOB was FINGER PAINTING in there. Took me an hour to get all the shit off the walls, floor and toilet seat and a couple days to get the smell out of my nostrils. I mean, dayum. I’m pretty good with the customer service skills and all but I cannot say with certainty that if I’d caught that guy on his way out I might have kinda, well, lost MY shit all over HIM.
Unfortunately, knowing people with colostomy bags opens up more possibilities. Not saying your conclusion was wrong, however, since I wasn’t there.
Okay, not familiar with colostomy bags but surely they’re made to be changed out without, y’know, exploding under pressure, right? It’s been something like thirty years since that particular event but I’m still pretty puzzled about how it happened, why, and most importantly, WHY DID IT HAPPEN WHEN IT WAS MY TURN TO CLEAN THE TOILET??? 
I’m not on expert on colostomy bags. But in my experience with these kind of situations, it’s usually a very frail, elderly person who might not have the most of nimble fingers anymore. Or a straight up palsy.
We had a guy like that at the American Legion I belonged to years ago. When caught he claimed he was senile and wanted me to give him a ride home. Told him there was no way his shitty ass was getting in my godamn car. We banned his ass.
Nah, heavyset dude maybe in his forties or so? I really think my fingerpainting theory has legs here.
Entirety possible. There’s always some weirdo assholes out there. I just found it easier on my soul to not assume malicious intent, do my best to get through my day, and look/train for a better job.
Just tell someone. I bet their insurance wouldn’t cover customers who hurt themselves while trying to clean up a mess.
Well sure, me too, but I have one of those brains that if I can’t come up with a reasonable explanation for something it’s gonna bug me basically forever. In cases like the Mystery Shitter it’s only worthwhile as a vaguely amusing message board anecdote but sometimes I get to hook up long standing puzzles with good solutions and that gives me a great big happy. Has also led to some outstanding real world results–it’s moments like those that keep me from digging the offending grey matter out with a spoon to stop the madness. 
[quote=“SmartAleq, post:36, topic:968877”] that keep me from digging the offending grey matter out with a spoon to stop the madness.
[/quote]
Ah yes. I use dozens of beers for that.
It’s called explosive diarrhea and it’s exactly what it sounds like. I feel sorry for you that you were on the receiving end of the results. If it’s any consolation the poor schmuck it happened to was probably in misery and in no shape to clean it up. I’ve seen it in a port-a-potty once. it looked like someone had used a textured ceiling gun. The whole back of the unit was covered.
Geez, at least with a porta potty they can just use a power washer to hose it out from way far off. And I’ve had exploding ass more than a time or two myself and it sure wrecks the bowl and seat right well but what I couldn’t quite fathom is the side wall. Like, right hand wall covered and behind the toilet covered and really high up there. Seems like if it was just exploding butthole syndrome it would be down lower OR it would have unloaded in his pants and saved me a miserable afternoon. I’ve personally never been able to shit taller than my own asshole, y’know? This guy would have needed to be basketball player size to get it up that high naturally and he wasn’t.
See? Obsessive thoughts, I haz them. This is probably going to bug me until I die.
Off to post in the “how long can you keep a vivid image in your mind” thread…