Agreed, it's not OPs fault, still sucks that OP was thrust in that situation, though.

It was souper stressful

Hahahahaha

Agh I'm sorry OP, I accidentally clicked "you deserved it" - but you didn't! That wasn't right for the employee to pick on you that way in the middle of the store, when they were probably the one who messed up.

Poor OP :c I can relate; I've got some pretty bad social anxiety. I hope the employee treated you kindly afterwards.

There there OP.

Was it clam chowder?

My local store (Publix) has a buffet section that sells things like soups, salads, fountain drinks, doughnuts etc... You serve yourself and then they either charge you for their container or weight of the food. It is not for sampling! But I've seen customers not care and stick their nasty hands in and sampler things off the buffet like olives, sausages, you name it. Where ever the OP got the sample cup, (most likely it was not directly next to those soups) took it upon herself to get it from another part of the store. Perhaps meant to store togo salad dressings on the side?

what #28? How is store going to give out samples of SOUP with no cup to put it in? Everyone just drinks out of the ladle? I didn't think so. Sorry OP, that's makes no sense at all.

#46, they are saying THEY DONT GIVE OUT SAMPLES AT ALL. They are saying OP might have taken a container from somewhere else and filled it with soup, thinking the soup was for free samples.

#28/51 I know Costco gives samples so for you to say the supermarket she went to doesn't give samples and to assume she went to Publix and not another supermarket is wrong

I wasn't saying that the store doesn't give out any samples, just that the soup was NOT one of those sampling items for that day. Samples are usually handed out by an employees. Yes exactly, like how they do it at Costco's. This doesn't sound like the case here. OP found a sample container somewhere else and took the soup on her own thinking it was meant to taste for free. It wasn't.

Maybe I'm wrong but I took it as there was a soup sample in the store but the employee was wondering how Op got the cup for the sample because they don't usually give out cups. If there was indeed a free sample, than I assumed that Op was given it in a cup by an employee (maybe after running out of what they usually use?) and therefore the employee that gave Op the cup is the one at fault, not Op. After reading the other comments I realize there may have not been a sample all, but that's not what I gathered from the FML. I think a follow up would be nice.

I understand what #28 is saying because I shop at a store that sells food ready to eat , buffet style, and the same thing happened to me. It sounds to me like maybe OP sampled the soup in good faith, using the little cups they usually leave near the salad dressings but maybe they were near the soups that day. And then an employee showed up and told OP those c u ps are not to be used for sampling soup (usually these cups are not made for heat , so not for soup sampling). and then , poor OP got really embarrassed.

because she started crying in front of everyone and was embarrassed about it?

In this case I can say that it's the opposite

I was thinking the sane thing! The minute I read samples immediately thought of Costco!