It’s easy to walk past children throw tantrums out in public with nothing but a short glance at them screaming and crying. If a kid wants to do something but aren’t allowed, they’re going to throw a fit for as long as it takes to win or get tired. Usually, kids grow out of this as they learn to problem solve, but some don’t. And these people’s true stories encountering immature adults will have you shaking your head at their "grown-up" tantrums.
1. See Ya, Baby
I caught my ex cheating, and I confronted him. Mind you, I was the only one working for the entire duration of our relationship. He got kicked out of his house for not having a job and never contributing about a month into us dating, and I, stupidly, told him he could live with me if he found a job. Bet you can guess what happened next...
The job never came. I found out he's cheating on me because one of the many side women found out he had a girlfriend and was an absolute angel and told me what was up. She sent me all the texts. This jerk even sent her pictures from my laptop while lying on my bed in my Minor Threat T-shirt! So, I went to confront him.
Instead of taking any accountability, he grabbed my phone from my hand and threw it on the ground absolutely destroying it. He tried to get in my face, but I was not about to have some man-baby intimidate me, so I told him to suck it and get out of my house. This is when it got truly humiliating. This man threw himself on the floor like a toddler screaming.
It was a literal toddler tantrum that included kicking with the screaming. Then he just finally left. I packed all of his stuff, threw it on the porch, and changed the locks. Bye, dude!
2. Bit Of A Stretch
This woman I knew from college was teaching yoga classes and wanted me to like her "yoga studio" page. She’d send relentless invites to follow it. I'd delete one then she'd send another. Finally, I thought, "Hmm, if I don't delete it, she can't send me one," so I left it alone for several months and hoped she'd forget.
I thought enough time passed, so I deleted it. Nope. Next day, I couldn't believe my eyes. It was there. A few years later, we lost touch, so I could unfriend her. She'd collected over a thousand people on her page, and I thought she would not notice. No. Somehow, this insane woman noticed the next day and scrolled through her entire friend list.
She figured it was me who had unfriended her and then sent me a new friend request right away. I don't even know how she knew who deleted her, like...did she had an excel list of everyone she had friended before? We had not talked or interacted together in years and were only acquainted because of our college program.
3. Mother May Not
I walked by two mothers pushing strollers. One had a second child walking alongside them, and upon seeing me, a man with dwarfism, one of the mothers started laughing, pointing at me, going, "Look! Look at the funny little man!" to her older kid clearly within earshot of me. And then, I heard the kid ask, "What is he?"
She said to him, "He's a midget". It felt like I’d been transported back to the 1800s freakshow era or something. I just looked back to stare at her with an appalled look on my face. She didn't respond to me at all. It's like she didn't even acknowledge me as a person. What a great attitude to instill in your children.
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4. If The Shoe Fits
I work in retail. It amazes me how fast grown-ups can devolve into children when there’s a sale or during the weekend rush. They would ruin the whole store. The staff free during closing have to clean up as best as they can in the very short time that they’ve got. We always have customers throw away all of their shame.
And it would be just because they weren’t able to get their shoe size because it was sold out. Some do it right in front of their kids, and you just stand there wondering, "You really gonna teach your kids to behave like this when shopping? In public?"
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5. Fly Far Away From Me
On a three-hour airplane trip, a lady in my row, probably 55 or so, sat scooted forward with her knees in the back of the seat in front of her for about 30 minutes and went through an entire bag of Reese's miniatures that smelled old. She texted on her phone well into takeoff and didn't even turn the ringer off to hide it.
Also, when there was a problem with the sky bridge at the end of the flight and they couldn't let us off right away, she called the airline's customer service to ask, "How can I get off the plane?"
6. Pay Me No Mind
My grandmother told me her mother-in-law was one of those people who needed attention constantly. At an important event with dozens of people, everyone was talking to her son instead of her. She hid behind a pillar and would occasionally exclaim, "Since no one is listening to me, I guess no one wants to see me at all".
7. Still Youthful
My stepmom used to be mean to me just because I was a child. Looking back, I realized she was on pills and probably extremely frustrated that she had to take me in when I lost my mom. It’s still no excuse to pick on a 7-year-old.
8. Pants On Fire
My dad bluffed to check security cameras after being accused of something. Then, after seeing the video footage which showed solid evidence, he threw a tantrum and stormed off to his room. It was all because my mom lectured him about wearing nice pants for yard work. He said he did not, and then we checked the cameras.
9. Need Some Space
My boyfriend and I were at a hotel for a tattoo convention when we were about 20. He slightly disagreed with me over something and then kept arguing, but it was a matter of opinion, so I didn’t bother arguing back. He stood, opened the closet, went in, and shut the door. I assumed he expected me to beg him to come out.
He stayed in there for about 20 minutes. He came out still mad and gave me the cold shoulder for the rest of the weekend.
10. Messy Moods
My chore was to clean the kitchen every day when I lived with my mother. One day, I didn't get around to it by the time she got home. She went nuts with full-on rage shouting. So, I shouted back. I was a grown adult, and the one day I didn't do it gave her no right to scream at me like that. She made me so angry, and I was done putting up with it.
So, I said, "When was the last time you came home and it wasn't done?" She just looked so happy and proud and triumphant and said, "Today". She acted like she hadn't just been shouting at me five seconds before like I should be happy for her because she had a good comeback when I was shaking with rage from her yelling.
11. Here Comes Trouble
I was pumping gas and heading to be security at a high-profile wedding. This old man was staring me down, and as I began to leave, four cars pulled up blocking me in. I had to give them my ID and prove that I wasn’t carrying before they told me what was going on. The old man had called and reported that I was bad news.
He accused me of posing as an officer and was actually some twisted psycho. The officers apologized to me, but since the guy was still around, I asked for an apology from him. I was wearing a suit and driving an old Corvette, plus I paid at the pump. Where did he get this information? As he was confronted, he just repeated himself.
He said, "I didn’t do anything!" And when asked why he called in on someone, he began saying over and over, "I don't remember doing that. I didn't do that". Yes, you did, you white knight boomer!
12. All That Quacking
My neighbor is a loser and well into his 50s. He used to come outside and yell at my mom for lighting one up on her own porch. So, when I went out and confronted him, he didn't like it much. So, he started bothering me every time I walked outside, about my dog, my career, and the ducks that would walk through my yard.
He would complain about anything. Anyway, a hurricane destroyed his house a few years ago so, karma.
13. The Whole Nine Yards
There's this group in my city that does not like it when new houses are built. They think all houses should look like they’re from the 1970s—sprawling ranch-type houses with huge yards. They don't like condos. They don't like apartments. My parents and I supported the new housing because it often replaced old buildings.
They were decrepit and falling apart. We understood some people prefer condos even though we're not condo people. In response, the people stuck in the 70s have dumped garbage on our front porch, spit in our mailbox, paintballed our house, egged our house, and there's the hyena lady who’d call and just laugh like crazy.
These are the same people who said disabled people like my mom don't deserve access to parks and that I should push her over a cliff "because it’d be hilarious". These people are between the ages of 50-99 years old. But they act like 3-year-olds! One argument against condos they said was, "Children need yards to play!"
I've pointed out to them that many people are child-free by choice and prefer condos for the same reason they don't want and will never have kids. They do not want the responsibility of maintaining a lawn. They stamped their feet and screamed like toddlers denied a lollipop, "WHAT ABOUT THEIR CHILDREN! THEIR CHILDREN!"
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14. Taking A Bite
My dad’s family and I vacationed in Park City, Utah in high school. My dad got a spider bite that was terrifying and literally taking over his leg. It was the size of a baseball, purple, and it looked like a giant crater seeping with puss and blood, and he was getting hot flashes. It was clear that he needed treatment.
We realized that it was a serious spider bite not to be ignored or self-treated. Every time we would try to get him to the hospital, he threw a tantrum including throwing his arms in the air and stomping his feet like a three-year-old. He just "treated it" himself by rubbing colloidal silver all over it like 1,000 times a day.
I realize now looking back it was because he was high out of his mind on all kinds of things and didn’t want the hospital figuring that out and basically outing him to all of us. We already knew. I mean your dad can only fall asleep on his dinner plate at classy places so many times before you realize he’s using illicit substances.
My dad did a lot of other immature things during his addiction, but the spider bite was just a specific one when I’d really took a step back and thought to myself, "This is my dad? Like is he qualified for this because I’m looking at three-year-old throwing a hissy fit about going to the doctor and not a parent right now".
15. Age Old Ultimatum
I observed a 40-year-old man on the floor clinging to who I think was his wife’s leg saying, "We are not leaving until you buy me that TV!"
16. Book ‘Em
I was a civil servant. I’d see grown adults falsely accuse people of discrimination simply because they were told, "No, you can't do that". At my job at a junior college, I was scheduling people to see an academic counselor to discuss their grades. The student walked up and requested the counselor who was booked solid.
I told them that they were unable to make an appointment and to try back tomorrow just like I told everyone else. The student said, "That's not right! You're being discriminatory!" The next thing I knew, I was hauled into my manager's office "for discrimination".
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17. Cork Screwed
I've heard grown men whine like children when I did phone work for a major ISP. The one that stuck out to me was a man who wanted a repair technician sent to him because he wanted to move his modem from one part of the house to another and the coax cable was screwed onto the back too tightly for him to use his fingers.
He refused to use a wrench because "I don't know the right size, and the cable is supposed to just screw off with your hand". When I told him that the technician would cost $50, he said he'd try his hand again. He then proceeded to make whiny grunting noises for about two minutes. It actually sounded like mock whining.
18. Doing Your Job
I had a co-worker give me the silent treatment for two weeks. She was surprised I didn't know she was mad at me. I just thought she was busy and working hard.
19. Who’s Who?
I definitely got into an argument with a five-year-old where I was getting mad at her because her point was so false and she couldn't see it. I had to step back and say to myself, "Relax. This kid is five, and this is the stupidest thing you've done in a while". I backed off but still stayed angry at the kid for a bit.
She may be five, but I definitely act like I am.
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20. Late Consequences
My principal was closing the gates at school at 8:00 sharp just as usual, and my friend got there at 8:01. He was so incredibly sleep-deprived from the number of research papers he had to submit and exams he had to study for that he woke at 7:45, threw on clothes, and went to school. The principal saw that he was late.
She said he couldn’t enter and she’d call his parents to get him. His dad answered and heard that he had to pick his son up for being late and said, "That’s good. He’s been studying too hard and barely got sleep last night. He can nap and relax". The principal then had the audacity to say, "Never mind. We’ll keep him".
She’d expected his father to be mad at him and punish him. Instead, she spent an hour lecturing him about time management when the only time he had absolutely no work during that week was when he visited his grandma. She asked him why he hadn’t studied there instead. I don’t know how he did not lose his cool right then.
21. Having A Ball
I confronted a dude in his truck for screaming at some little neighborhood kids. They’d crossed the street to get a ball making him slow down. I made a call, and after interviewing us both, they told me he kept saying he was a property owner in the town as though it gave him the right to threaten children over nothing.
It was the most childish defense for behavior that I have ever heard. I later became friends with his ex-wife by chance, and she brought up the altercation since gossip travels fast in a one-horse town and said he's known for being an ignorant jerk. He was too embarrassed to drive down our street after that’d happened.
22. Getting Tremaine Deals
I once went Black Friday shopping with my stepmom, and it was terrible because my stepmom sucks. I told her I didn’t want to go Black Friday shopping with her the next year. So, she gave me the silent treatment for all of Thanksgiving. I think I was 16 at the time. I remember asking her questions at Thanksgiving lunch. Her response was so immature, I couldn't believe it.
She completely ignored me the whole time we were there. I had no idea it was because I didn't want to go shopping with her. I left that lunch crying and then cried through another Thanksgiving dinner at another family member's house. I couldn’t understand it. Who gives a 16-year-old the silent treatment when you’re 36?
My brother got caught using pot in high school, and she told my whole extended family not to give him money for his graduation because he would spend it on illicit substances. She then forbade him from ever coming into the house again. He moved across the country a few years later and was not even allowed to say goodbye to his dad.
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23. Won’t Brother You
One brother didn’t invite the other brother to his wedding for many valid reasons. The uninvited brother then ruined the rehearsal dinner by faking an OD when he was living in another state, so it was not easy to verify, which caused everyone to worry. Then his wife attacked someone during the reception.
24. Pretty Repelling
I was sleeping over at a friend’s house. They had cool magnets on their fridge, so I was playing with them. My friend and I got to her room and heard, "Who messed with my magnets?!" Then her mom came running up the stairs and barged into her room messing up all the stuff on her dresser shouting, "How do you like this?"
"Do you like it when I mess with your stuff?!" Then she had her husband take me home. It was crazy.
25. Cut To The Point
I worked as a busser at a restaurant, and a guy came in with a group of friends. He ordered a steak, and the waitress forgot the steak knife and was heading back to get it when the customer began throwing a temper tantrum and said, "No, no, it's FINE. I'll just eat using my hands". Then he mentioned he was a professor.
Then he started talking about how the service was terrible. The waitress was telling him that she could grab the knife in five seconds. The guy ended up talking to the manager and kept repeating, "I'm a professor," over and over again. He was so irritating that I just wanted to march over and flip his dish onto his lap.
26. No Take Backs
I had a Karen who came in with a retail return, and the system automatically checked her receipt for the items. One of her items she was trying to return wasn't on the receipt. I explained to her that it probably wasn't scanned because we had a bunch of new cashiers and she could go back and look for the right receipt.
She got annoyed with me and insisted that she brought the right one. So, I told her that she could do the no-receipt return for store credit for whatever the item cost at the store then, and most of the store was on clearance due to the pandemic. The item rang up on the register for only two dollars. The fit she threw!
She just kept yelling over and over again, "I'm an educated woman! I'm an educated woman!" at me, the college student. She eventually threw the shirt at me and declared that she would never visit our store again.
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27. Career Guilder
I went to college and ended up in the same class as my older brother's best friend at the time who had failed a few different courses and kept starting over. In the UK, students usually start college around 16-18, and he was 24. This wasn’t a problem, but it was a red flag. Six months into the course, he chose to quit.
He decided to quit because he kept missing raids in World of Warcraft and his guild had threatened to kick him out if he missed another. I later learned that he had taken to playing WoW full time and acted as an unpaid "trainer" taking lower-level members of the guild and helping them level up. Years later, my brother saw him at a party.
The guy was still living with his parents and hadn't held down a job for more than a few weeks. Not surprised.
28. Frequent Flier
I worked as a Walmart cashier in a rural area. There was a woman who would constantly bring in old flyers or flyers for stores way out of our area and demand to price match. One time, she was making price match demands without even a sales flyer. She just said she knew it cost some ridiculous price at the other store.
We had sale flyers from every store within a certain area at the register, so we knew she was lying. She lost her mind that day. She started throwing every item out of her cart onto the floor. Glass jar of pickles? Thrown to the ground like she just scored a touchdown. Eggs, pasta sauce. Glass and food went everywhere.
Then she started throwing things at the other cashiers and customers while screaming like an animal. And you know what this manager did? Rather than calling somebody, he gave her a $100 gift card for her troubles because the customer is always right at Walmart. I heard she just upped the antics until she hurt somebody.
29. You Big Tattletale
While picking my daughter up from school, I saw a woman call the emergency number on another parent because she could not get into her driver’s side door because she said the guy parked too close to her. The guy parked perfectly in his spot. She, while parked fine, was very close to the line on the driver's side.
She berated and yelled at the guy for a few minutes and then loudly announced she was calling the authorities. She did, and the poor guy backed down and moved his car.
30. Fun And Fancy Flee
I work with two women in their 30s who are inseparable and cackling gossips. That was until one time when one of them said, "We should go out on the town!" The other replied, "Oh…that's not really my thing". The first said, "Oh, don't be boring! It’ll be fun!" The other who was much older suddenly burst into loud sobs.
She wailed, "You think I'm boring!" She cried so hard that they had to send her home. They had to make her go home because she was crying about how her very best friend "thinks" she's boring. I work in an office not a preschool.
31. Everybody Must Suffer
When I was grocery shopping with my ex once, she asked if I could get her one of the massive jugs of chocolate milk, and there was only one left. I told her it wasn't in the budget because I was the only one of us working and not getting paid enough as I found out later, and my car just had some expensive repairs done.
Her response was, "If I can't have it nobody can!" and she dumped it all over the floor. I put up with her for way longer than I should have.
32. We’re All In This Together
I was frenemies with a girl in high school choir. We competed for solos and parts, so a silent rivalry started to form. Right before a performance, I was walking around where the audience was entering, and this girl's mother rammed her shoulder into me. A grown adult shoved and glared at me because I was "competition".
33. Fighting A Losing Battle
I joined the US Navy when I was 20. This is something that would make a parent proud especially since I got two points away from a perfect score and was going to be working on the nuclear reactors that power aircraft carriers. My "father," hereafter referred to as A, is crazy. He’s full-on "tinfoil-hat-theorist" crazy.
He legitimately believes that having a driver’s license allows the government to come and destroy your entire life. He thinks you should be able to get out of a speeding ticket by just refusing it. His beliefs probably come from using for a long time, and he was not very enthusiastic about me joining forces with the "enemy".
I made the unwise choice to tell him in person. My then-boyfriend and I were visiting my parents at their rural house. A took it as predictably level-headed as you’d expect an insane person who believes that men should be in charge of the womenfolk of the house would when his daughter makes such a decision for herself.
This grown man just started screaming not yelling. I've never heard anything like it. No words—just straight-up animal noises of pain and rage and impotent frustration. While my boyfriend and I were running a half-mile down their driveway to our car, a fallen tree was blocking the driveway, and we heard his pathetic mewling from all the way back there.
Seeing that his "look how much you’ve hurt me that I can’t control you" yelling did not work, this grown man tried a hunger strike. He threatened to starve himself unless I agreed to not join an organization that would train me, give me an excellent education and opportunities for the future, and pay me while doing it.
I think he made it about 36 hours before ending his hunger strike.
34. Goo Goo Girls
There are two women at my work who talk like babies. I won't respond to them if they ask me in their baby voices. They remind me of the twins from Alice in Wonderland.
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35. All Over It
This guy was acting like a giant baby and spiteful jerk because his girlfriend, my best buddy, broke up with him. He had made multiple accounts on social media to bash her, deleted all her comments/messages defending herself so that people will think she's the villain, and has constantly whined and threatened to take his own life.
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36. Never Gets Old
My mother works with older people who will act like children if they don't like you. They’d do things like laugh and snicker behind your back or as you pass. The most ridiculous, though, was when she saw someone they didn’t like sit at their table. They just moved over a table, sat, and laughed obnoxiously at the person.
37. Nature’s NASCAR
I did Cub Scouts in 2019 for my then six-year-old son. One part was pinewood derby, and although I probably could have made a pretty fast car for him, I let him mess around and build it himself with the exception of the spray paint and the lead weights. On the day of the race, most of the cars there looked like my son’s.
They were sloppy, half-built monstrosities that barely rolled, except one, and that one was, of course, the pack leader’s kid's car. And that car looked professionally made. The race started, and honestly, I was expecting to let all the cars run, the kids have fun, and kids be kid. Every car had to get an average time.
The pack leader had an actual laser timer for each of the cars, which turned what should have been a fun, two-hour activity into a whole day affair where nobody had fun. The bracket races started, and sure enough, my kid was out in the first round, and he wasn't allowed to touch or hold his car until everyone was done.
He was just bored there with the rest of the 6-year-olds. But then the cars were narrowing down. It was the last four: three ramshackle kid’s cars and one that looked like it came out of wind tunnel testing. The four cars drove down the ramp, and it's not even close. One of the junky, silver disaster cars won the race. This is where it got truly brutal.
The pack leader nervously said, "Well, we have to race all the cars on every track so it's fair". They went through the motions. The next race, the pack leader's kid put the streamliner on the track that the winning car went on the last race. Lo and behold, the silver piece of junk won again. The pack leader was fuming.
The rest of the kids were sitting down bored out of their minds after four hours of this nonsense, and all he wanted was his kid to win. They raced two more times so that all four final cars drove down all four final tracks. The kindergarten special won hands down. The pack leader lost it and was yelling at the kid’s mom.
He accused them of cheating even though he had measured all of the cars beforehand and started yelling that there was no way that "piece of junk car" could have beat his and screaming at the pack for not appreciating his leadership. He told us to pack up his stuff and leave because he wasn't going to tolerate cheaters.
This was all while yelling and crying and as he picked up the construction paper and cardboard trophy that the Weebolos had made for the event and ripped it in half in front of everyone. We did not sign up for Cub Scouts again.
38. Time To Go Shopping
We’re good friends with a couple who constantly have money issues. He works a full-time job and so does she, and he does odd jobs on the side for extra cash. Lots of the odd jobs are things that she sets up. On the regular, she gets mad at him for working all the time and not spending enough time with her and the kids.
So, to "get back at him," she goes on a shopping spree buying a bunch of stuff that they don't need. I am completely baffled at the lack of logic and overall immaturity.
39. Mother Of All Flights
I was on a flight with my mother. The woman behind us has two small children. The father was on the plane, too, but in another row. They didn't want to sit in their seats. They wanted to stand on the floor and punch the back of the seats in front of them–our seats. So, that's just little kids not seeing consequences.
Maybe the mom didn't notice. Finally, my mom turned around and asked if she could stop them from doing it. She flipped out and yelled at my mom not to tell her kids what they could and couldn't do even though my mom didn’t say anything to the children. She didn't stop them, obviously, and seemed to be encouraging them. Oh, and it gets worse.
My mom called the flight attendant because talking to the woman was not working. The flight attendant asked her to put the kids in the seats with their seat belts because it wasn't safe for them to be there anyway. She did but told them, "They were not allowed to play because of the mean lady who was in front of them".
She then started imitating my mother's voice saying, "Oh, I'm so mean. I hate little kids," all kinds of crazy stuff. The seat belt light turned on, and, about 5 minutes later, she let them back down to kick and punch our seats. The flight attendant came, saw the kids, and told the woman again they had to be in a seat.
She put them back again but again told them it was my mother, "the mean lady’s" fault, and called my mom rude names a couple of times.
40. Mess You Up
I went with my dad to a local pizza restaurant in town. I could see a young girl’s birthday party going on behind my dad. The little girl was talking with her friends, and the mother was tugging at the young girl’s sleeve to get her attention. The girl was so into her conversation that she wasn't responding to her mom.
So, the mother took the water pitcher and dumped it out onto the table.
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41. Iron Fist
I worked for a "boss" out here in Chicago when I first moved. After a major product issue, the assembly team was left to get the project finished by December 1st. The boss demanded everyone to work on Thanksgiving. After somebody mentioned something about spending time with our families, he said, "Screw your families".
I worked on a Saturday to help fix some orders. The boss came and screamed at me about the certain way things were. I tried to explain that I just got there, hadn't worked on the job prior, and was trying to fix it. I said, "Phil, be reasonable," to which he jumped up and down and said, "I don't want to be reasonable!"
42. Out Of Social Service
I used to work with developmentally disabled adults. I took this one guy, Jeff, out to Friendly's for lunch. He’s autistic with ADHD and Tourette's. You can clearly tell he’s a disabled young adult at the time. He would rock a little bit and sometimes have vocal tics saying innocuous things like, "yeah," or "hoo, hoo".
Most people clearly make an exception on social conduct with a disabled person. The guy in his mid 40s-50s on the other side of the booth began to rock really hard, banging the back of Jeff's seat and imitating him because he was annoyed trying to enjoy his $7.99 lunch. Jeff wasn't the one getting dirty looks that day.
43. Left Out High And Dry
When my grandpa passed, my grandmother was very upset. My grandmother's friend came over to see how she was doing after the funeral. Well, my aunt got jealous and actually got upset with her mother/my grandmother because she was talking to her friend instead of her. To this day, they have not said a word to each other.
44. Fatal Fit
My mother hated my father's mother, mostly for good reasons, but when my grandmother got sick with ovarian cancer, my mother stepped in to help. She’s a nurse, and she was used to helping sick people who were mean. My mother made sure my grandmother made it to all her appointments and shifted into a free hospice nurse.
My mean aunt freaked out about how dare either of them did that, my mother had no right to do it, and it was my aunt's responsibility even though she’d known about the cancer for six months and had done nothing. My mother said she was done with that nonsense and stopped helping. My grandmother was gone by the next day.
45. Write You Up
My girlfriend worked for a gym/sports center for kids. Yeah, the kids can be a handful at times, but the parents are wild. My girlfriend would come home daily with stories about the parents. One time, a dad chucked a pen at her co-worker because he wanted to sign his kid up for a class but couldn’t because it was full.
46. I’m Hatin’ It
My mom and I were in the drive-thru at a McDonald's, and some woman tried to cut in front of our car and screw up the organization of the line because she couldn't wait her turn. We still got in front of her because we were there first, and while we got our food, she drove by our car and just screamed at us.
Then she just left the drive-thru. She didn't stay to get the food she ordered. She just left the drive-thru to scream at us and then drove away.
47. Facing The Straw Man
When I was 13 years old in school, I was studying critical thinking and about the different types of fallacies and what strengthens or weakens an argument. One day when I got back home from school, my mother started screaming at me for no reason. This turned into a heated argument and, as always, with her insulting me.
She wasn’t actually responding to any of the points I was making in the argument. So, thinking "I know how to make her see she is being unreasonable," I said, "What you are doing now is a type of Ad Hominem fallacy, and this weakens your argument". I’ve never seen her shut up so quickly, and I thought she might hit me.
That was until she shouted sarcastically, "Well, blah, blah, blah, aren’t you smart?!" And she stood there fuming, and the eye contact was just too much for me. I was so ashamed and appalled by her childish response. I just said, "Wow," dispassionately and walked upstairs. For once, she didn't follow me going up there.
48. Get My Fix
I remember a couple who would come through the drive-thru often during my Starbucks barista years. The wife was the type who’d constantly chase the deals and points through the app while the husband just had to have the strongest brew to help with the headaches presumably from dealing with her. She was "that customer".
If there weren’t enough sprinkles on her peppermint mocha, she'd immediately go back through the drive-thru to complain at the menu board and back at the window. She'd even try to lean through the window to watch her drink being made and would point out if we didn't make it to her liking. All sorts of magical behavior.
We had a promo of Buy One Get One with a stipulation of it being between certain hours of the day from 1-4 PM one year. The couple came through and placed a pretty significant order. They pulled up with her visually excited she's scoring the jackpot of all things coffee. When I read her the total, her jaw just dropped.
She said, "No, that's not right at all. We want the Buy One get One deal!" I told her, "oh no! I'm so sorry, but that's only between 1-4, and it's currently...6:15". "So, I can't get it right now?" I said, "No, ma'am, just between those hours. It's also posted on the door and in the app". "But I work during that time!"
She took a deep breath and kept going, "How am I supposed to get my drink then! How do I get it? Can you make it work for me now?" I said, "Ma'am, it's all done automatically. I couldn't even make that happen if I tried". She yelled, "So what am I supposed to do now?" I paused and told her that she’d have to come back.
Mind you, she was sitting in the passenger seat yelling at me directly next to her husband’s ear. He practically threw his card at me to just pay for it so he could just leave while saying, "We'll figure it out". Her face was in her hands while they drove away. I have never seen someone in fake Chanel look so defeated.
There was also a semi-regular who’d only come to buy our bottled water. The bottle had a phrase on it about helping needy children without any actual promise of the company doing anything. It just made people feel good about spending four dollars on something we can give out for free from our filtered taps essentially.
One time, we were sold out of the bottles, which was rare but happens. She came to the drive-through and ordered a drink but, at the window, pulled up and asked to buy a few bottles. When I informed her that we're out and that I could offer her a free cup of water, she pulled off her sunglasses to stare directly at me.
Then she said, "...But...But how am I supposed to help the children?!" After realizing she wasn't joking, I could only give her a look of deep confusion and hand her the iced tea she ordered before she quickly sped off.
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49. Pants On Fired
I run the office of a home improvement company and part of my job is to schedule customer installations and then let our subcontractors know who, when, and where. On Friday, I called one of our installers and told him we had four jobs lined up for him that week, gave all the important info, and said I’d see him Monday.
And he called three more times to verify the days, jobs, and what they were. Monday morning rolled around, and he was nowhere to be found. I called; it went straight to voicemail, which was coincidentally full. I texted him and reminded him we had him scheduled and asked if he was coming back in. Not a single response.
When he finally walked in later that week, he went straight to my boss's office to tell him that he told me on Friday that he wasn't available to work that week. The smug look on his face as my boss was standing there giving me a hard time about "my screw up" got me so angry. I did get the last laugh, however.
As soon as he walked out the door, my boss turned to me and said, "I hope you know that was all an act for him to get him to do that job today. He's fired as soon as he comes back!"
50. Garbage Day
We were renting two rooms from my mother-in-law when things went south. We found a new place to live the same day but came to an agreement that she would stay with my sister-in-law and we'd have everything out by Thursday. We ended up getting everything out on Tuesday. On Wednesday night, she decided to come back down. I knew she was nuts, but what she did was insane, even for her.
She took her entire trash can, split open the bags, and left it on the front yard. She also busted out her front window and claimed we did it. The upstairs neighbors at our place verified that we were, in fact, over at our new place all night. Better yet, her neighbors verified that we had not been there since Tuesday.
And on Tuesday, the yard and window were fine then. Best yet, a nosy neighbor saw her car pull in the driveway that night, stay there for like 15 minutes or so, and peel out. In the end, she ended up costing herself a $300 littering citation and a new window.
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