Yesterday, DH and I were at a sub sandwich shop (a large chain in the U.S.). At this restaurant, customers line up at the counter to order sandwiches and customize them with ingredients. In this particular location, there is a narrow shelf that runs the length of the counter to display single-serve bags of chips. The shelf is probably 5 bags of chips deep and about 8 feet long. On an adult, the shelf is at waist level. Customers pick up bags of chips as they go through the line and pay for their orders at the end of the counter.
When we were in line waiting to place our order, a man and a little girl (probably around 4 years old) were ahead of us. Their order was taking some time. The man was ahead of the little girl, so she was standing between him and me. At one point, I glanced down and noticed that the girl was chewing/licking/sucking on the corners of the bags of chips. I watched her move down the line and continue licking and chewing on the bags. I don't know when she started doing it, but she was about 5 feet down the counter by the time I saw her. For all I know, she may have had every front bag of chips in her mouth all the way down the line. Her dad was paying attention to the order, so he didn't see what she was doing. She had about 3 feet of bags ahead of her when her dad called her over to the register because she'd fallen behind in the line.
When I noticed her, I wasn't sure what do. I considered telling her to stop. "Please don't chew on the bags of chips. Other people will be using those." Then I considered telling her dad. "Excuse me, your daughter is chewing on the bags of chips." Either way, I would be interfering with a stranger's kid, and I felt uncomfortable with that.
In the end, I didn't do either of those things. When I got to the cash register, I told the two workers what the girl was doing. I figured if I told them, they could remove the front row of chips from the shelf. No matter what, they needed to know about it so they could get rid of those chips. The two workers were annoyed when I told them (not at me). Then one of them asked in rote fashion if we wanted to add chips to our order, and we all laughed at the irony. (No, we didn't get chips, but we didn't want them anyway!) I do hope the workers removed those bags of chips.
How would you have handled this?