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public behavior
When we hear the word, "tantrum," we typically think of those for whom the term is intended: tired babies, frustrated toddlers, and maybe the occasional Siberian Husky.
But some of the most memorable tantrums have actually been thrown by someone else: adults.
From traffic jams to being sold out of a favorite product, it seems there's no shortage in sight for these large tantruming toddlers.
Already cringing, Redditor EnforceThePlace asked:
"What's the biggest public tantrum you've ever personally seen from an adult?"
Not Worth It
"Dude at Walmart in 2003ish had a complete meltdown over his spiral notebooks ringing up at 30 cents a piece instead of the 25 cents that was listed on the sign."
"Composition notebooks were 25 cents. Someone put those spirals back on the shelf in the wrong spot."
"He did the whole shebang. He even shouted, 'YOU DON'T KNOW WHO YOU'RE DEALING WITH,' while his teenage daughter begged him to stop. The cashier started crying."
That was the first time I’ve ever seen someone get thrown out of a Walmart."
- RealBowsHaveRecurves
Foot Stomping And All
"I watched the CEO of a company I worked at start screaming and stomping his feet because people weren't listening to his band at a company event, and instead were mingling at the bar."
"He literally shouted, 'This is MY PARTY! This is MY COMPANY! This is MY FAVORITE BAND!'"
"I just started laughing. What else can you do?!"
- roguescott
What A Wonderful Christmas
"In my youth, I worked in a little gift shop. A well-dressed, elegant couple in their 40s came into the shop one day during the Christmas season, with an ad in hand for a certain item."
"We had sold out of the item and they yelled at me, demanding I order a new one for them or it was false advertising."
"I was timid back then, so I just quietly explained that it was a limited lot, which was stated in the ad, and we couldn't order any more."
"This enraged the woman. She... she actually stamped her foot and said we had ruined her Christmas."
"Up to that point, I was annoyed and a little scared of their over-the-top anger. But when she stamped her foot, I burst out laughing. Seeing a grown woman do that was just so absurd. Especially when the item in question was an angel figurine on sale for $5.99."
- Bleu_Rue
One Big Conspiracy
" Security guard here. I've seen many things to answer this question, but a more notable one was when a drunk lady was trying to drive her car off of a two-story parking garage."
"While trying to drive down, she was failing to make one of the turns without scratching the side of her truck. I tried telling her to leave her truck up there and not drive, but she wasn't hearing any of it."
"She then became convinced that the architecture of the building was designed to trap her in particular, so she began screaming, 'HELP, I'M TRAPPED,' repeatedly before taking the turn so incorrectly that she tore her wheel well and gas cap clean off her truck."
"I watched and cringed as they were slowly torn off the truck. The sound it made was wretched. She didn't care; she just kept driving."
"She then proceeded to hit one of the cars on the lower level. At that point, I had already documented everything and called the cops. The cops gave her a DUI while she was screaming the whole time that I had set her up."
"A few days later when it was time for her to check out of the hotel, she was staring at me the entire time while checking out, and upon leaving, she said, 'See you later, Allen...'"
"My name isn't Allen..."
"The front desk guy would ask me to tell this story to people while laughing his a** off for the following year."
- TrevCat666
Maybe, Just Maybe
"Two weeks ago in Orlando, my family and I were in a nice restaurant. There was an issue a few tables away from us, it was a group of guys in probably their late 20s."
"It started over slow service, and the waiter, manager, and a food runner ended up in a confrontation with the four patrons."
"There was lots of yelling and drama, the guys got escorted out, and it should have been over right there, but one of the guys came back in and hit the waiter in the back of the head (Sucker punch from behind) and was tackled by the busboy."
"Two of the other guys from the table come running back in (I don't know what happened to the fourth) and jumped into it. Cooks came out of the back, and six restaurant workers took down the patrons."
"It ended with police being called and arrests being made, it was the biggest brawl I've seen in a while before the cops got there."
"There may have been alcohol involved. Maybe."
- MicroCat1031
We Might Know Why This Guy Bailed...
"I used to work at a call center for various utility companies, first calling customers with imminent shutoff notices (Cash or Candles), and then in customer service taking calls. I could write a novel on some of the things I heard, but my absolute favorite was during my first year making Cash or Candles calls."
"I called a customer regarding his gas bill. He wasn’t there, but his wife answered. For this particular gas company, we were allowed to speak to a spouse if the customer was not present."
"So I started talking to the wife and started to give her the 'your bill is overdue' spiel."
"As soon as I mentioned the overdue bill, this lady freaking lost it. 'THAT SON OF A B***H! HE TOLD ME HE PAID IT!' She was absolutely BAWLING into the phone."
"I tried to explain that it was very possible that he had paid the bill and their number had not yet made it out of our dialer, which happened quite a bit."
"She screamed, 'BULS**T! BULLS**T! DON’T START STICKING UP FOR HIM!' There was more pitiful sobbing. 'No wonder he was gone three f**king hours!'"
"As it turns out, this man had left earlier to pay the bill. He had come home, left the bill and receipt on the counter, and left again. His wife was convinced he had lied about paying the bill, forged the payment receipt, and was cheating on her."
"It took me 15 minutes to get this lady rational enough to call the gas company and confirm that the bill had, in fact, been paid."
- 2gecko1983
So Much Jealousy
"My uncle was yelling at me when I was five. He couldn’t stand the fact that I was sitting next to my aunt in the restaurant when he wanted to sit next to her."
- onionsoup123
"Ah yes, it reminds me of the time my dad threw a spoon at my siblings' head because she was served a bigger portion of soup than him."
- Own-Introduction6830
The Most Important Cancer Patient
"Not necessarily public, but I used to work at an Oncology office. Someone wanted to reschedule their appointment for the day before they were supposed to come in."
"No big deal. I told him when there were appointments available, and none of the times worked for him."
"He became irate and told me 'I need to be nicer to him because he has cancer.'"
"Like sir, I sympathize, but everyone here has cancer."
- charlotte7301
The Nerve Of Some Moviegoers
"I worked at a movie store as a teenager. A guy pulled up at 10:15 PM (we closed at 10:00). He saw me in the dark store and tapped on the window to indicate he was returning his movies. I looked at him and tapped on my wrist to indicate they were already late."
"He proceeded to throw all three movies at the window as hard as he could and started cursing at me."
"After he drove off, I went outside and wrote down all the barcodes. I looked up his account and added a note as to what happened. I left the movies sitting outside."
"Obviously, all the movies were stolen. He had to pay the capped late fee plus he had to pay for replacements."
"The funny thing is, had he just accepted they were late and dropped them in the bin, I would normally do people a solid and check them in before I finished closing. His childish behavior cost him a lot more money (around $100) in the long run."
- ZachVIA
Sisterhood Of The Traveling Rants
"On my first cruise, my 11-year-old son and I rounded a corner, and there were two old ladies, one standing in the stairwell and another halfway up the staircase, screaming."
"The two white-haired ladies were hollering things like, 'I HATE YOU!' and 'I WISH I'D NEVER TAKEN YOU ON THIS TRIP!' and so on."
"My son's eyes were as wide as saucers. Apparently, any sort of tizzy that I had gotten into in his presence was far eclipsed by the performance given by these two elderly gals!"
- Travelgrrl
The Price Of A Friendly Work Relationship
"A sales guy I worked with just earned a huge commission on a multi-million dollar mortgage. Some of us convinced him he should take us out to dinner because we helped and he was a good sport and we (sales guy and three low-wage earning women from support staff) went out to a local pub."
"The bank president was there, which was not unusual. He made the rounds of all the local places most nights after work. He came over to say hello, and when he found out why we were there, he got angry that he hadn't been invited and started yelling at us and banging his fists on the table, and then he went back to his friends at the bar."
"We decided he had to be joking, there was no way he could be angry at us for that, so we decided we'd be funny too. We asked the server if she would bring him the check, but don't really leave it with him, and she thought it was funny too, so she did."
"He was not kidding. I've never seen a grown man have such a public tantrum in my life. He was screaming at us until we got up and left (and would not let us take the check back)."
"I went to work the next morning and my boss (who was supposed to be with us but had something come up) was coming out of the president's office and this guy, who did not swear in front of women wanted to know what the f**k we did to make his boss so mad that he was trying to order my boss to fire the guy that got the commission."
"Later on, we figured it out. Because of that commission, the sales guy earned more money that year than the bank president."
- Risheil
The PS5 Release Was A Weird Time...
"A customer got mad at another customer for 'buying the last PS5' even though it was a pre-order."
"The guy followed the PS5 buyer out to his car screaming at him and trying to fight him over it. As the buyer was driving away, the guy started throwing rocks at the car."
"The buyer sped the h**l away, nearly running over someone. The crazy motherf**ker said he was going to sue the store because we called the cops. Not sure what happened, but I hope he got jail time for assault. F**king stupid a**hole."
- OhTheHueManatee
Was The Scarf Even Worth It?
"As a former retail manager, I've seen a lot. The most ridiculous one was when I got called to the register because a woman thought the sales tax was a penny less than it should have been."
"She bought a three-dollar scarf that was half price, so it was $1.50. With tax, it was $1.54. The tax is 6.35%, and she thought it should be $1.53."
"Math isn't my strongest suit but I told her that the 0.35% probably pushed it over an extra penny. She kept arguing to the point where she had tears in her eyes and refused to leave."
"I finally told her that I would give her a penny and she said no, paid, and left."
- Celistar90
We Found The Florida Woman
"I had just walked up to my parked car with my family from the beach in Southwest Florida. It was a packed and busy parking lot."
"An older retired-aged lady flew around the corner, pulled up directly behind us, and asked if we were leaving. I told her that we were."
"We proceeded to open the trunk to put our beach stuff in. We were still wet from swimming and were drying our clothes off with towels, clapping the sand out of our shoes, etc. The lady was still parked directly behind us, watching us like a hawk."
"It had been maybe 3 minutes since we had got to our car. She then asked if we were almost done, and I calmly replied that it would just be a minute."
"We got into our car, fired up Google Maps, and she started laying on her horn, yelling at us to f**king move. I put the car in reverse and asked her to get out of the way, as she was blocking us in."
"She got out of her car and came right up to my window, yelling and screaming profanities at us like we had violated her rights. No shame, yelling in front of several people like a nut case."
- Brave_Spell7883
The Tantrum To Beat Them All
"When I worked at a local mom-and-pop type restaurant/cafe/upscale grocery store (think Whole Foods but not a chain) back in the day, we made this cheese dip called Better Cheddar to put on crackers and whatnot."
"It's pretty good, but there is an unhealthy cult following for this dip from all the locals that live in this middle-class area."
"If someone is having a little party or get-together with some wine, you know there's going to be some Better Cheddar on the table."
"Anyways, one Fourth of July weekend, we didn't have any more Better Cheddar. We were completely out, and we're waiting for our supplier to drop off this very specific type of cheddar we used to make it, and most people understood if you come back tomorrow... the Fourth, we'll have plenty in stock and your party will be saved."
"Except for one woman."
"When she learned we didn't have any in stock, you would swear we just told her the only cure to her life-ending disease was just flushed down the toilet because we didn't think anyone had the disease."
"She went to the fridge with all our other dips and whatnot in it and started opening the dips and throwing them around the cafe/store area making a HUGE mess. People were covered in spinach artichoke, buffalo chicken, and bleu cheese dip."
"All the dips were wasted, and when the display fridge was emptied, she slammed the door, causing the glass to crack all the way from the bottom to the top. Some of the containers she threw broke the TV, and they broke the display cases for our fancy cheeses and prepared foods you just need to heat up."
"An estimate of the waste and damage would be around $3000 because those display cases were old and finding a replacement glass was impossible because it was curved, so a new one would need to be specially made somewhere in upstate New York."
"The best part of it all was she was a friend of the owner. We all knew her very well because she would come in three, four, five times a week to order off the menu and just be a problem."
"When she came in a few days later, I was the one who decided we were not dealing with her bulls**t anymore and refused service."
"She got defensive left and came back with the owner like a child tattling on someone."
"I had the pleasure of telling the owner she was the cause of all the damage and the reason we were closed on the Fourth to fix the damage. The owner was not aware of this; I assume the manager just told them a random customer got angry."
"The lady tried to deny it but the head chef and I had pulled a copy of the security video immediately, so we could watch it again and laugh, and showed the owner."
"The owner insisted the woman would need to pay for the damages and lost product; otherwise, there would be legal action and she would not be allowed back in until she does... Three months later, the glass was still broken, I was written up for not serving her, and she was allowed back in the store."
"I quit shortly after that and after I found a better job bartending in the city. This was about 11 or 12 years ago now and I recently went in to pick up some Better Cheddar for a work thing. Some of the damaged displays are still there and still damaged.
- smr312
These tantrums were shocking and unnerving, and they certainly put toddler tantrums to shame.
The worst part is that each of these instances could have been solved with a level-headed and solution-seeking conversation.
Instead of yelling up the stairs, throwing dips, and trying to break windows with movies, these tantrums could have resulted in something much more positive.