Woman arrested for licking $1,800 worth of groceries

Grocery shopping in the Corona Age is a not particularly pleasant task that most of us are glad to get licked each week.

But of course you don’t literally need to lick your regular food purchase to ensure it’s struck off the to-do list.

Unfortunately, a troubled woman in Northern California appears to have overlooked this fundamental truth.

Workers at a Safeway near the California-Nevada border spotted Jennifer Walker on Tuesday handling and licking a wide range of items inside the store, the Tahoe Daily Tribune reports.

The 53-year-old woman allegedly coated numerous groceries in saliva, including meat and liqor.

She also tried on many pieces of jewelry in the store, licking each item in turn before loading it in her shopping cart.

South Lake Tahoe police called to the store found Walker still there with a shopping cart full of merchandise.

After further investigation, officers discovered that the clearly disturbed and impoverished woman had no means to pay for any of the items.

The entire contents of the shopping cart, around $1,800 of goods, were deemed “unsellable due to the cross-contamination” and had to be destroyed, police said.

Walker was booked on suspicion of felony vandalism, with bail set at $10,000.

South Lake Tahoe police Lt. Shannon Laney told NBC News the department had dealt with Walker in the past but she didn’t have a criminal record.