Life's problems

I had the strangest encounter at Life supermarket (English slogan: Thank you for coming to Life). 

It's three or four stories, the ground floor containing nonfood items that a traveler might need, like toothpaste and baby wipes. I grab those and head downstairs to buy coffee and go to the checkout line, where the cashier looks at my items and points upward. Clueless tourist that I am, I look at the ceiling a couple of times before it hits me that maybe I needed to pay for the nonfood items upstairs. Maybe? But it's all the same store, right?

I'm not sure how to say "up there," but I know enough Japanese to be able to say, "I buy over there?"and I, too, can point at the ceiling. But I couldn't summon my Japanese words in any reasonable amount of time, which is the infuriating thing. And in fact, she is able to ring up all my purchases where we stand because she does so. So what was that all about?

The cashier does not bag your items, nor are you invited to do so yourself. You have to take your stuff to a separate bagging area where everyone has regular plastic bags and I'm like, "Where did you get those?" All I can find are these tiny transparent bags that I can barely fit my stuff into. I have so many questions. Do you really have to make separate purchases in the same goddamn store? Where are the regular size bags? Why am I such a bewildered moron?

It was kind of thrilling, to be honest.