“I asked her “why” and she told me it was because we had an item on the bottom tray of the cart.”
I know what happened! You, more than likely had something like a 50 pound bag of dog food that can’t be bagged, however if you are like me you said to the lady at the check out “I have a bag of dog food under the cart can you scan that?” and the lady came around with her scanner and got it.
Yes I know that feeling then when you go out you have already put the receipt in your walled and don’t want to dig it out again.
It was a 1 gallon jug of cooking oil that was scanned normally and I didn’t want to put it in the top of the full cart and crush our bread, eggs and such.
At the point of paying for all these items (in cash) they become my property.
We do exactly what you said when we buy dog food.