Rules exist for a reason, but as retail workers see time and time again, many customers think they don’t apply to them.

That same mindset turned one employee’s shift into a non-stop saga when one mother tried to send her young children in to buy cough medicine for her.

And her car being illegally parked in handicapped space was just the icing on the cake.

Read on for the full story.

i’m not going to break the law for you, even though you already are

So I’m up at the registers chatting with my cashier and look out the doors to see a car parked across two handicap spots.

So the employee goes out to investigate.

With my LP instincts, I quickly walk the floor and see if there are any potential shoplifters somewhere.

The only people in the store are a family waiting on passport pictures.

I walk outside to scope the parking lot and figure maybe this family’s driver is impatient. The two other handicap spots are open, so I brush it off.

But that’s when things started getting truly strange.

But as I’m coming back inside, a 10-year-old boy asks me where the Robutussin is.

I tell him, but also say that he cannot buy it, that he has to be 18, and to have his parent come in to buy it.

Then the cashier notices something else odd.

He walks back to the aisle as the other family leaves and gets into a different car. The boy leaves and walks up to the driver’s side window of the car.

I follow him out and “spy” as I’m grabbing a few carts around the parking lot.

I hear a woman yell at the boy, “Just get the money and go get it! Hurry up!”

I walked back inside and thought, whatever, my cashier is going to decline the sale anyway.

So incredibly, the mother tries again with her other child.

In fact, she had sent her daughter in (maybe 13 or 14) to buy it, and my cashier still refused.

But when that didn’t work, the mother kicks things up a notch.

Next thing I know, the mom is inside yelling at my cashier, asking, “Where are the signs saying you have to be 18?!”

I quickly step in and explain that it is a state law that we cannot sell anything containing DXM to a minor.

She challenges the cashier on this.

She asks me, “Well do you have any signs saying that?”

I snapped back with a “NO,” and she says, “Well, no other stores ever care!”

But the cashier isn’t about to let themselves be walked all over.

And I say, “Well ma’am, other stores may not care, but we do. We will not sell this to a minor. I am not breaking the law for you.”

She huffs at me on her way out and quickly leaves.

Apparently other customers noticed the scene this mother was causing too.

My next customer is a disabled veteran who has a plate for handicap parking. He says to me, “I wanted to say something about her parking, but I didn’t want to get my eyes clawed out.”

All I could say was, “SAAAAAAME.”

All this employee could do was shake their head at just how fast things escalated.

What did Reddit think?

This user shares their frustration about misusing handicap spots.

It’s great to watch this kind of bad behavior actually get punished.

Customers really need to get some new lines.

Some people take bad parking to a whole new level.

The mother left empty-handed, and the cashier went back to their day.

Some people really just can’t take no for an answer.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a customer who insists that their credit card works, and finds out that isn’t the case.