What is the biggest/most humiliating tantrum you have seen a grown adult throw?

I was at a store with a few friends, it wasn't a big place but being as it was a clothing store there were plenty of racks and such, and we noticed in particular this one child who happened to be causing a good bit of trouble hiding behind the racks and such. In the duration of our visit, he hit me with a plastic baseball bat and ran into one of my friends. The kid was at least 5. Now, normally I'd write this kind of behaviour off as some sort of issue the child had and dismiss it as nothing more, but his mother was the real issue here. She did nothing to discipline her child, other than occasionally yell at him.

Now this kid, through his shouting and running around, at one point made his way behind the check out counter, where it's very obvious no one but employees are supposed to be. I've been to this store a good few times, and know most of the employees moderately well. One of them is an older lady who is honestly one of the sweetest people I've ever had the pleasure of talking to. She was also the one behind the counter when this little hellion ran back there.

As gently as this little old lady could, she tried to guide the child out from behind the counter, all while the brat's mom was screaming at the kid. Then it happened. The fucking kid tripped. The mom let absolutely loose. She began screaming at this sweet lady for abusing her child and threw an absolute fit. It was funny, because the lady still wasn't paying attention to her kid. As soon as he got up, he was back to running around and wrecking the place.

But this mother, she was absolutely convinced the worker had somehow injured her child. She demanded to speak to the manager, who calmly explained that the child wasn't allowed to be behind the counter and the worker had done the right thing by attempting to guide him out. The manager as well as the woman who was working both apologized profusely, but the mother continued on screaming and faking crocodile tears.

The whole store was holding its collective breath, no one was going to come between this middle aged woman and her little tantrum. She continued on to demand that what she was buying be free, and the manager, in the politest way possible, told her to fuck off. It was kind of obvious by this point that she was sort of attempting to scam the store out of free stuff as that's all she kept demanding was they give her stuff for free to cover "the damages." Her child's wellbeing was forgotten as all she was concerned about was free clothing.

They didn't let her have anything for free, and she eventually paid and got her little shit out of there. When I went to check out, I could see the woman who had "pushed" the kid over was obviously upset, and my friends and I assured her she did nothing wrong and the lady was crazy.

The kicker? This was at a charity-based thrift store. This lady really thought an old volunteer worker is gonna hurt her kid on purpose. And if she didn't and she was just trying to get free stuff, she was trying to do it from a fucking thrift store? It was pathetic.

TL;DR some lady's shit kid got "hurt" and she threw a fit and demanded free stuff from a secondhand shop

/r/AskReddit Thread