Anyone who works in retail has experienced a time when customers treat them more like babysitters than store employees. These customers walk in, and immediately their kids run off to cause trouble while the parents shop without a care in the world.

Of course, if the child ever gets hurt, the parents are quick to blame the store rather than take any type of responsibility for their terrible parenting.

That is what happened at the baby supply store in this story. A worker was busy doing his job when a young girl started playing on the furniture nearby. She slipped and fell, smacking her neck on a countertop and knocking the wind out of herself in the process.

When the parents finally came over to check on their crying daughter, they immediately got upset with the employee for not properly supervising her, but the employee had the perfect comeback to their empty threats.

Read on to get the full picture of this frustratingly common type of story.

Got threatened with legal action for not parenting someone else’s child…

This happened when I worked at a large baby supply store.

Most of the people shopping there were seriously the last people that should have been breeding.

They wouldn’t even watch their children, some going so far as to dump the kid in one of our display cribs then walk away, & they expected us to watch them.

Nope. I’m just there to sell you overpriced baby junk.

If you set up a balloon station, you have to expect that the kids will come over.

So, on one particularly busy day (we were holding a vendor event in the store) I somehow got roped into making balloon animals for the little monsters (with no balloon experience mind you).

So, of course kids were gravitating towards the balloons.

I was set up over by our furniture area which is in the back of the store.

The desk is set up like the letter u but with a straight additional counter at what would be the top of the u, but not connected to it (if that makes sense at all haha).

Kids should know not to climb on furniture, especially in a store. This is a perfect example of why.

So, this little girl, left alone by her parents, shocking I know, is climbing on an ottoman that was next to the straight counter.

I kept on telling her not to do that, that she was going to get hurt.

Low & behold, the kid slips off the ottoman, and falls on the counter throat first. She hits hard enough that you can hear her throat smack against it.

Injuries to the throat can be deadly.

She knocked the wind out of herself so she couldn’t really even cry at first, but after a little bit, out comes the wails.

Her father rushes over (“father of the year” haha) & sees that his little brat got hurt.

So, then he glares at me & starts screaming at me “How come you weren’t watching her, this is your fault, you’ll be hearing from my lawyer!!”

His empty threats of calling a lawyer went away real fast.

Now he thought that this was going to intimidate the 19-year old girl (who looked about 12 at the time), but I’ve always had guts & one heck of a temper, so that did not fly with me.

I snapped back at him “Go ahead, call your lawyer, I’ll be one on the phone with child services!!”

He scooped up his daughter & literally ran off without saying a word.

Why is it that terrible parents who don’t watch their kids always blame other people when the kids get hurt? It seems like they hate taking responsibility for their children or their own actions. It is really just pathetic.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about siblings who treat every social outing like a weird competition.

Read on to see what the people in the comments on Reddit have to say about this story.

I can only imagine how awful kids are in a pet store.

This commenter had a somewhat similar experience. Fortunately, nobody got hurt, but the neglectful parent still failed to learn a lesson.

Her comeback was perfect. I loved it.

It takes good parents to raise a child. The village isn’t responsible for babysitting.

This is fine as long as the child has been taught to behave.

Everyone knows that when someone says that they are going to call their lawyer, it is an empty threat. Anyone who actually has a lawyer that they can call knows enough not to tip off the other party that legal action is coming.

Of course, you can’t really expect someone who is this terrible a parent to understand something like that. These parents can’t even take responsibility for themselves, much less teach their children.