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No day working in retail is ever the same. Sure, you go to work and do your job, and come home again. Sure, you might be working every day at the checkout, or stocking shelves in the same department. But the things you’ll be asked – and more importantly, the things you will witness – will never stop shocking you. And around the holiday season? Things just got turned up a notch.

The retail worker in this story was working a night shift in a grocery store during the holiday season, when he was asked an innocent question by a young child. He answered and thought nothing else of it – until the drama well and truly kicked off around him. And even years later, there was something uncomfortable about this ruckus that stuck with him.

Read on to find out why.

A really angry Christmas family

A couple of years ago, I worked nights in a supermarket just stacking shelves.

It was Christmas, so all the spare display space was littered with toys and wrapping paper.

As I was filling the shelves, a kid came up to me (roughly ten years old) and asked if we had a specific type of toy.

I told him yes, pointed out where it was and went back to work. But a couple of minutes later, I could hear an argument between the kid and his father.

Let’s see how their argument went down.

The kid was saying, “But I really want it,” to which his father replied, Tough. Its not Christmas yet, you will have to wait.”

The kid, steadily getting madder, yelled, “BUT I WANT IT!” The father said, “Too bad, come on, we are leaving.”

Cranking it up to 11, the kid yelled, “I SAID I ******* WANT IT! NOW!”

The dad, now matching him, yelled, “AND I SAID TOO ******* BAD! WE ARE LEAVING!”

Yikes! Read on to find out how this developed.

At this point, the father was trying to lead his son out of the store by the arm. They were both still screaming.

They were attracting a lot of attention as it was when the son brought out the big guns. To remind you again, this kid was about ten years old.

He yelled, “DON’T ******* TOUCH ME! GET OFF ME YOU ******* ****! I’LL ******* STAB YOU!” (it just goes on like this).

This kid was loud, so loud people from other departments were coming to have a look.

Let’s see how things concluded with this angry family.

At this point, I’d had to walk away to try and escape the chaos. My manager stepped onto the shop floor as I tried to walk away.

He called me over and said to just work further down the display, and he would try and deal with it.

Father ended up dragging his kid out when my manager told him security had been called.

You could hear the kid still screaming for about five minutes every time the automatic doors opened. Thankfully never saw either of them again.

Wow. This must have been quite jarring to witness – it’s clear that the store worker is still shocked that these words came from a ten year old child.

But the truth is, the dad’s attitude is the bigger problem here.

After all, where do you think the kid got it from?

Let’s see what folks on Reddit made of this.

Some people were really shocked by the boy’s behaviour.

And others wondered if he had some greater context.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a tech support worker who told a manager a computer needed replaced, only to be told no thanks.

While this Redditor rightfully pointed out who the real problem was.

As a parent, your job is to help you child develop, and to show them patience and consistency. Every kid will demand things in a shop sometimes, as part of their growth. As a parent, you need to stay calm and explain to them that they can’t have it right now, but if they still want it down the line maybe they can. The absolute worst thing you can do is start yelling at them, because all that teaches them is that they need to be louder to be heard.

Yes, what the little boy said was shocking and unpleasant. But what a lot of folk are missing here is the fact that this kid is being mistreated (whether that is neglect or abuse) by one or both parents. The tell? Well it’s in part what he said. Kids learn by copying their parents by the most part, so it’s likely that he’s heard people in his life using similar words in situations where they’re not getting their own way. But the biggest factor is the way his father responded to his outburst. You know exactly who the problem is here, and it’s not the kid.