Most of the time you see little kids flipping out and throwing temper tantrums in public. But some strangers out there have seen real-life adults acting completely irrational and causing scenes for all to see.
They Made That Big Of A Deal Over A Dollar…
“When I was in college I worked at a convenience store. I got a call one day that went like this.
Old lady: I sent my grandson in for milk and when he gave me the change he was a dollar short.
Me: Ok I’ll check the register to see if any transactions look wrong. Did you check his pockets? My kids always get money stuck in their pockets.
Old lady: He doesn’t have the money.
Me: Ok can I get your name and number and I will call you when I get done looking at the register receipts.
Old lady: Sure (gives me info)
Me: Thank you I’ll call you asap.
No big deal, it’s a dollar. Went through both registers found one where a customer paid for a $2.50 gallon of milk with $4. Was probably fiver and the clerk hit the wrong button.
Not five minutes later before I can call the lady back, this fat older guy come charging into the store screaming in my face saying he’s going to get me fired for calling his grandson a thief. At first, I have no clue what he is talking about then it dawns on me. So I ask: ‘Are you the husband of the woman that called and was a dollar short?’
‘Screw you, you called my grandson a thief, I’ll have your freaking job you uneducated piece of trash’ blah blah blah.
I try to explain to this red faced Santa-looking fellow, that I just asked if the money got stuck in his pocket, it happens to my kids all the time and a lot of little kids for that matter.
‘You freaking piece of trash! My grandson is fifteen! You’re so done, I hope you like unemployment, you worthless human!’
This goes on for a few minutes. I just stand there and smile calmly while other customers shake their heads and this loud mouthed moron screaming at me until he is as red as a cherry.
He didn’t even bother to get the dollar back.”
Not So Discreet Sneaking His McDonald’s Into The Movie Theater
“Alright, so backstory! I work at a movie theater, and we, of course, have a no outside food being brought in policy (Which to be honest unless it’s blatantly obvious that you’re carrying a bunch of food in, we won’t stop you). Anyways there was a lot of traffic in town that day for some weird car parade going on for the high school seniors and it made a lot of people late for their movie since it closed the roads.
About 20 minutes past trailers and into the movie this middle aged man and his wife show up looking very flustered and wanting tickets. While we’re helping them the guy puts his bag of food on the counter and I see it so with my boss nearby I can’t just ignore it. I tell him that outside food can’t be brought into the theater so he’ll have to finish his meal real quick or leave it somewhere else.
At this point, he just looks at me with this completely incredulous look on his face like I’ve just spat on his mother’s grave. Then he starts talking quickly and trying to convince me to let him in with the food gradually raising his voice, and I kept saying no, but his reaction was so strange.
He and his wife just kept saying, ‘Oh no it’s fine it’s not a problem’ and then trying to walk away, and I’m standing back there having to say, ‘Sir no, it’s not ok! It’s against our policy.’ He kept just getting louder and totally red in the face freaking out and he started telling me it was my fault since I organized the parade outside just to spite him (spoiler alert, I have no connection to the parade incident).
So now I’m getting upset and having to raise my voice and constantly tell him that no it’s not ok for him to bring in the food, or to yell, or to hold up the line that’s slowly forming behind him.
Finally, he’s apparently had enough which he demonstrated by throwing his bag onto the floor and spilling salad and other McDonald’s items everywhere onto the floor. We both just glared at each other for what felt like a minute, and then I broke the silence, much calmer now and said, ‘Sir, pick up your food and put it into the nearest garbage receptacle, and leave the theater.’ He didn’t pick anything up, but he did leave which at the point was enough of a victory for me since I had other late people lining up.
Some people just don’t know how to act in public.”
Smelly Man Who Wouldn’t Leave…
“I was working the desk at my precinct when a guy I could smell from quite literally, 50 feet away began to approach. I could tell he was a couple of french fries short of a happy meal but what the heck– to serve and protect the public and all the jazz. Except when I began to approach the window, his odor literally made me feel like I had been physically assaulted with a blunt metal object, especially when he opened his putrid mouth to form words.
Because he hardly has any teeth, I can barely understand a word he’s saying, but I manage to get something about ‘the green men had ghosts’ that were ‘taking bites of him in his sleep’ and ‘mind control.’ I inform him that this is not a law enforcement matter as best I can while trying not to gag and tell him to please leave.
Dude went from zero to a hundred. FLUNG himself on the glass with a screech that would’ve roused the dead, and began pounding, hissing, slobbering and spitting on everything, screaming about how he was going to do this that and the other thing once I came out from behind that glass. I stand my ground and tell him that I am going to ask him one last time to leave, and if he does not, he was going to be dragged into a holding cell and slapped with disorderly conduct because it was only 7:50 AM and TODAY IS NOT THE DAY AND I AM NOT THE ONE.
The crazy man promptly slobbered all over his hands, slammed them on the glass again and wiped them, leaving trails of putrid stank behind. He then proceeded to sprint out of the station, never to be seen again.
Our cleaning lady was MAD! The lobby had to be febreezed repeatedly, AND we had to install a Glade plug in to get rid of the residual stink.”
The Whipped Cream Saga At Disney World!
“I used to scoop ice cream at a place in Disney World. One of our menu items was a handmade milkshake, which is actually quite difficult to make. It has several steps and needs to be blended together, which takes up valuable time as well. By default, they come with whipped cream and a cherry.
So this old, cranky woman orders one. And she says no whipped cream. So I put it on the ticket, but there are about 100 guests crammed into our little to-go window, so I’m really rushing.
When I finally get around to making her order (I had to take the orders AND make them, even with hundreds in line), I’m rushing as fast as I can, so I start to put whipped cream on it from muscle memory.
She sees me starting to put it on and screams bloody murder, ‘NO WHIPPED CREAM!!!’ The whole place went silent. I didn’t look up from the shake, just scooped the whipped cream off with a spoon, put a lid on it, and slammed it on the counter. She left with her tail between her legs and every eye in the restaurant on her back.”
Arrest At Barnes And Noble Bookstore?
“I was working the register at Barnes and Noble — I was scheduled for customer service but the line was backed up so I decided to help out. That proved to be a major mistake. I was in the middle of a transaction when this old lady frantically waving a piece of paper approached my counter. She immediately asked me to call 911. When I asked her what happened, she again repeated her request for me to call 911. When I asked her who she wanted me to call 911 on, she said ‘Your manager.’
I finished the transaction and asked her what was wrong. She brought in her dog and our B&N has a very strict ‘No animals allowed in stores with the exception of service dogs’ policy (I later learned it was because of her) and she was asked to leave the store.
She claimed she had paperwork proving the dog was a service animal (she didn’t). Cops were called to remove her from security but she didn’t budge. She called the cops names and told my boss he was a monster and Satan himself. She said I was a bad employee for not having my manager arrested (?!?!).
The police were this close to arresting her before she finally left.”
The Fact That He Pulled His Car Over…
“This guy said I entered the street too fast. He was going out of his house in his car which was right in the corner of the block. I just slowed down normally, my girlfriend was with me and neither of us thought I had to break hard to avoid hitting him or anything. I thought nothing was going on until we parked a few houses ahead in front of my girlfriend’s house and he accelerated his car into me while pointing his finger.
He stopped next to me and started yelling and I had no idea what he was talking about so I nervously let out a small laugh. He got even angrier and pulled over his car, then proceeded to beat the life out of me, he was a big guy with either mental problems or having a really bad day. He punched my jaw and I got my lights turned off and hit the back of my head with the pavement.
I woke up inside an ambulance seeing blurry and spent the next 5 days in the hospital.”
A Grown Man And His Coffee Shop Meltdown
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“This guy in front of me in line was losing his temper on this poor coffee shop clerk for some reason. I was not entirely following his rant, I think he kept asking for some item they didn’t have and wouldn’t accept that it did not exist.
His face was really red, and his fists were clenched, and he looked exactly like my five-year-old nephew during a tantrum. This grown man was in a business suit. It struck me, at that moment, as one of the funniest things I ever saw. So I started to laugh.
He turned on me and started to yell at me about how I’m probably some minimum wage idiot, just like the clerk. This was even funnier to me, for some reason (even though I actually DID make minimum wage at the time). I was nearly bent over with laughter now. I guess it was partially a nervous reaction. This made him spitting mad. Literally, he was frothing at the mouth.
Laughter is absolutely contagious, because everyone else in the place, who had before been looking nervous and keeping their heads down, started to laugh with me. The guy pretty much HAD to leave at that point, he had lost any respect he thought was owed to him.”
Your Purse Doesn’t Need Its Own Seat, Ma’am!
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“When I was 16 I went to the movies to go see Notorious (that movie about Biggie Smalls) with I think there were 7 other people, most importantly, a girl named Davonte (this is important later) who I was trying to date, was with us at the time. Because there is a whole group, we were trying to find seats where we could all sit together. In the whole theater, there was only one batch of seats in the very top row. So we’re stacking in the theater and everyone is giggling a little, but as far as teenagers go I’d say we were being pretty good. Anyways, the last seat is coming up for me and as I walk up to it, I realize that there’s a lady’s purse in it. The lady is sitting next to it, and her husband next to her.
I pause, and say: ‘Uh, excuse me, ma’am, is there anyone sitting here?’ and she looks at me and goes ‘No,’ in the rudest way possible. She doesn’t move her purse, even though it was obvious I was asking to sit there so I go: ‘Would you mind if you moved your purse so I could sit there then?’ and she looks at me again and gives me this judgemental look and then looks away.
I guess this is where I screwed up cause I go: ‘Cause, you know, seats are for people?’ Then she looks at me and goes: ‘Excuse me?!’ and then her husband reaches across her body and goes: ‘What did you say to her, kid?! She’s moving her stuff!’
I’m a 16-year-old, and this guy is a full grown man. But I just say: ‘Didn’t look like she was moving sir, I was just trying to sit down.’ At this point, people are turning around, and all my friends are starting to stand up and stuff.
Him: ‘Just shut the heck up and sit down.’
Me: ‘I’d like to sir! Once she moves her stuff!’
Him: ‘Do we have a problem kid? Do you need me to kick you out of here?’
The entire time this is happening, Davonte is standing behind us going ‘Sit down old man!’ ‘Shut up old man!’ and stuff like that.
Eventually, the dude reaches across his wife again and makes a grab for me and I just go: ‘Aight man, forget about it’ and he goes: ‘No you freaking punk! She moved her stuff! Sit the heck down!’
And I’m just like ???
One of my friends comes over and sits in the seat, and I ended up swapping with him which kind of resolved the issue.
So yeah. He had a meltdown because his terribly-entitled wife wanted her purse to have its own seat in a packed movie theater.
After the movie, we’re walking out and one of my friends is getting picked up by his parents and we’re telling his dad everything that had happened and another couple that was in the movie walks up and goes ‘Well we were there and you should have just shut your mouth and been an adult about it. He’s a cop, he could have gotten you in a lot of trouble.’
This miffs me. So, in a situation WITH AN ADULT, the teenage boy who was being relatively respectful, should have been the adult so that the adult cop could have his childish meltdown???
It was a really dumb situation, in my own opinion.”
Her Life Sounds Like It’s Spiraling Out Of Control…
“I work as mall security. Dispatch told me to make contact with a lady walking up and down the mall for no obvious purpose. I approached, said good morning, and she went off, yelling at me; I was a racist pig, flashlight cop, freakin’ loser.
She was drunk at 11:00 in the morning.
I started talking to her and introduced myself. Asked her: ‘What’s your name? Did you drive here? Can I call you a cab? Do you have somewhere to go?’
My supervisor walked up and ordered her to leave before we called the cops; the woman became even more irate. We walked her to an escalator and she began crying and talking to me: her husband of 5 years had come out to her as gay, moved his boyfriend into the house, and kicked her out; she’d been drinking 3 days and living in her car. It took a while, but I convinced dispatch & the supervisor that what was needed was an intervention, not a banning or an arrest.
LAPD was summoned and they took the lady to a detox center where she could sober up and start the long process of getting her life back together.”
Taking Out Your Problems On Pharmacists Won’t Hurry Up Your Prescription!
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“I’m sitting at the pharmacy waiting to pick up my prescription of painkillers for what appears to be a kidney stone.
This guy comes up huffing and puffing. Starts yelling at the pharmacy workers about how his doctors and insurance are screwing up and ‘I’ve been without my medication for a month and could kill someone right here.’
He starts acting more unstable as he continues his diatribe and then says something about how even his excessive sweat could kill people. Then he turned and looked directly at me and said, ‘Ask him, he knows what I’m talking about.’
I told him that I had no idea what he was talking about and couldn’t even see him sweating.
He’s been screaming at the pharmacy workers and myself for the last twenty minutes while waiting for his prescription to be filled. I hope I get out of here before him.
Currently, he’s taking about how his mental illness is because of secret tests that he used to do on test subjects ‘back in double-you double-you two.’
The guy can’t be older than in his mid-20s.”
Ruining Someone’s Life Over Meet And Greet Tickets…
“She didn’t get to go on stage and hug the actors from a soap.
I was volunteering for a charity, handing out tickets for a free Q&A event with the stars of one of the popular soaps. I had two sets of tickets, one for Meet and Greet, one for Viewing only. I had a limited number of each, and I was told to give them out on a first come first serve basis. The tickets were supposed to start being given out at 11 am, but people started queuing at 8 am. We had to start handing them out at 10 because the line was becoming too long to manage and we didn’t have enough volunteers.
So obviously, I ran out of the meet and greet tickets really quickly. I only had the viewing tickets left. Most people were understanding but this one lady was not okay.
Apparently, I ruined her life. It was the worst thing that had ever happened to her. It apparently happened the year before, and how dare I do this to her again (I didn’t volunteer last year). She was going to complain, and then she started crying. This was a fully grown woman, having a tantrum because I could give her a ticket to go to a meet and greet to hug some soap stars that will probably fade into obscurity in a year. The show is a revolving door of actors, and maybe 1 in 100 make it to the big times.
But no, apparently, my personal attack on her happiness was the worst thing to ever happen. She still got to see the show, but she had to be ushered away by some other volunteers so I could continue handing out tickets to people who were actually happy they got in at all. The people I turned away at the end who missed out entirely were completely fine with it.”
Threats In The Shopping Center Parking Lot
“Okay, well, I was backed into a parking space in a busy shopping center in Honolulu. I got in the truck and started it up. As I put it in drive, a woman comes whipping around the corner and parks herself across the lane (wrong way in a one-way lot) in an effort to take my spot once I exited.
Apparently, she did not consider that I might need to, I don’t know, use the lane to exit the parking lot. So I motion to her that I need to get by her. She starts yelling at me. I called out the window that she needed to move if she wanted the spot. She yelled some more, throwing out plenty of ‘get the heck out’ and ‘What in the heck are you waiting for?’ I just stuck it back in park and waited. She got out of the car and came to the side of my truck, still yelling and making a scene.
She opened the door to my truck, threatening to fight me. She was threatening to fight someone who was 7 months pregnant (and yes, she had seen me walk to the truck, which is why she rushed to the spot) for not exiting a parking space due to being blocked in by her car. I grabbed the door and shut it, asked what the heck was wrong with her as I rolled up my window and locked the door. People were stopping and staring at this exchange, and I was horribly embarrassed.
While I was embarrassed, I was also kinda angry. I mean, that was a pretty extreme reaction to an easily solved situation. She got back in her car and I waited her out. At this point, even if I COULD have left I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of having this parking spot.
She finally gave up and tore completely out of the lot.”
The Doctor Doesn’t Understand The Difference Between Debit And Credit?
“I had a customer introduce himself this way in my cell phone store.
‘Hi my name is John Smith, actually, it’s Dr. Smith, yes I m a doctor… I’m here to pay my bill!’
‘No problem sir, however, we only take credit card!’
‘Okay here’s my debit card!’
‘Sorry, sir we only take credit in store, if you wish to pay debit, I’ll give you your account number and you can go to the bank!’
The guy goes into a complete meltdown calling me mean names and then he decided to ask to speak to customer service. I explain to him that it didn’t matter what they said because I had no way to take his debit payment. He still insists on calling and every time he calls, he asks the person if they are located in Canada. Then he would hang up on the person every time they said ‘no’ until he got someone from there.
Obviously they said they like me so he furiously hung up and said he would sue us.
So then, he came back a couple of days later with a letter to the court and we had to escort him out by security because he became aggressive. And I never heard from him again after!”