Seeing Red
I was in the return line at an electronic’s store, and the lady two positions in front of me got called up next. She was trying to return a vacuum cleaner because it wasn’t sucking anymore. It looked like it had been used outside to clean a construction site. There were caked-on white patches of dirt all over it, the cord had several knots, and the clear container for dust was packed full, with no room for shaking.
The person told her she just needed to empty it and it would work fine. They also mentioned that they could not take a return on it because the purchase was made seven months earlier. She wasn’t having it, not one bit. She took an exaggerated deep breath and started yelling nasty words. Everyone in the line froze and stared at the spectacle.
This was no small woman either. She was about 5’7″ and her voice had gone from sweet to rabid in a split second. Her face also turned from white to red in the same amount of time. The poor little girl tending to her took a step back in recoil and fell into the chair behind her. The manager came sprinting out of the office with his hands up, asking her to settle down.
It didn’t work and only made the woman angrier. She then started hitting the counter with one of the vacuum cleaner brush attachments. She called the girl “useless”, the manager a “toad”, and she kept threatening to sue them. This went on for about two minutes and there was a large crowd starting to gather.
She raised the long brush attachment as if she were going to strike the girl and proclaimed, “FINE, IF YOU DON’T WANNA GIVE ME MY MONEY, I’M GONNA”… At that point, I had enough of her disgusting behavior. I wasn’t about to watch this woman become aggressive against innocent people. I yelled, “HEY”. She stopped mid-sentence, jerked her head at me, and shot eye daggers at my face.
All I could do was stare at the gobbler on her chin, swinging around as if it were jello. The words that came out were not the ones I’d intended. I said, “PUT THE FORK DOWN”! Her eyes went wider than they already were, which seemed like an odd reaction. Everyone then burst into laughter. Then I realized what I’d said.
I was about to correct myself, but she started stomping toward me with the vacuum rod attachment high above her head. So, I decided to roll with it in the most epic way—I was wearing a red jacket, so I dropped my bag, swung it off, and started acting like a bull-fighting matador. The woman saw me mocking her and just shrieked. She started galloping at me as I swung the thing in circles above her head.
I got about 20 feet away when security confronted her with tasers drawn. They didn’t zap her, but the sound of one calmed her down instantly. She immediately went into defensive mode. She was taken into custody, and I had my hand shaken by four or five people, including the manager. I even got a girl’s number out of the ordeal.