vomit and Kmart

Yesterday my four year old Rose said her tummy hurt but she was running around, eating normally, and I began to think "my tummy hurts" was an attention getting device. So we planned to go to church as usual, and we stopped at KMart on the way. Suddenly in the check out line she said "Oh, I just want to sit down! My tummy HURTS! I'm going to throw up!" And she did, all over the end of the checkstand. The cashier stared at us. I asked for paper towels but he did not respond. Another customer brought me two paper towels. Still the cashier just stood there. And he asked "Is she sick or something?" (What should I have said? "No, she's allergic to unhelpful cashiers"?)

Two paper towels were not enough to wipe off Rose's church dress, and I tried to use plastic bags to clean up both my daughter and the checkstand. The cashier rang up the next customer and said "Don't worry, I won't get your stuff in THAT," glancing at the vomit and glaring at me.

I realize it's not a fun experience to have vomit on your checkstand, but I've worked retail. It's part of life. The stores I worked in had maintenace employees or courtesy clerks who had to come running with paper towels and cleaning products to take care of this sort of thing. I used to be one of those courtesy clerks. Glaring at customers was not part of the cleanup process.