Can a faulty Walmart scanner ruin your life? Ask this ex-Olympian

On March 28, 2024, a former Olympic athlete named Meaggan Pettipiece had her life turned upside down by a traumatic experience with a Walmart self-checkout machine in Indiana. You really shouldn't trust those stupid machines. The spotty teenager or slow old woman scanning your groceries might be annoying, but at least they won't ruin your life like a self-checkout machine will.

Pettipiece had packed all of her items in her cart and went to the self-checkout line. She scanned her items, which totaled $176. But some items in her cart were not scanned, such as ham and asparagus, which totaled $67. Walmart security called the police, who then arrested Pettipiece for grand theft of ham as if she were a penniless teenager.

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During the search, police found two blister packs of an anti-nausea drug called Zofran and three disposable vaporizers. Pettipiece said the drug belonged to her assistant and the vaporizers did not contain THC. She was already charged with theft, but now faces charges of possession of marijuana and a controlled substance.

Pettipiece played softball for the Canadian team at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and was an alternate for the Canadian 2004 Olympic softball team. At the time of her arrest, Pettipiece was the head coach of the Valparaiso University softball team. However, the arrest caused so much excitement in the local media that she was forced to resign.

Only later did she realize that the Walmart police shouldn't have approached her in the first place. It turned out that the self-service machine she was using was broken because it wasn't registering the items she scanned. And the blister pack of anti-nausea medication and those vapes? After some investigation, the cops determined that the drugs weren't hers and the vape pens they found didn't contain THC.

Her career was ruined for no good reason whatsoever.

After several months of legal nonsense, the Indiana Department of Justice finally decided to drop all charges against her on September 19, 2024. She described her life between March and September 2024 as a “living nightmare.” She said, “I lost my career, I lost my job, the life I had built, and it was really difficult.”

And all because of a broken self-checkout. This is bleak, dystopian shit.