Everyone has a bad day, a day where they just want to explode and let out all of their frustrations and anger out on the world, but most people know how to let their cooler head prevail. However, that's not always the case.
A Reddit thread recently asked people to reveal the most ridiculous adult temper tantrum they have ever witnessed, and wow, the results were shocking. One would think that temper tantrums would be exclusive to children or an extremely small number of adults, but judging by the following stories, that's far from the case. So buckle up and prepare to take a trip through some of the wildest and most infuriating adult temper tantrums. All posts have been edited for clarity.
Just When They Thought The Fit Was Over
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“In Asia, in a popular mall, a grown woman rolled on the ground kicking and screaming when the grown man she was with refused to buy her jewelry.
She slammed her hand on the glass counter, then it turned into a shouting match. Then the guy started telling her off about how she needed to be a ‘traditional Chinese woman.’ Then he proceeded to (childishly) tease her about how childish she was behaving. Like full on making fake crying sounds.
She cried. Then stopped. Like cold hard stop on the crying. This was the glorious moment when she jumped onto the ground and rolled around kicking and screaming.
I wish I had my phone charged because it was glorious. I was traveling all day and wanted to see the building’s observation deck, so I got out of there.”
It Looks Like He Has A Habit Of Losing His Cool
“One day, my father-in-law got mad at me after he backed into my car. My car was well out of the way of his truck, but he is dumb and didn’t see it and backed right into it. So he came in the house, slamming through every door (also breaking a few on the way) and then started screaming at me that it was my fault and that his insurance rate was going to go up because of it. I went out and looked at it, and it was just a small dent on my already crummy car.
When his wife died, he freaked out multiple times at her funeral and was on edge the entire time. He was feigning calmness extremely badly and was pacing around constantly, looking like he was about to explode the entire time. So when he did explode, we were at the cemetery, and it was because people started running out of parking spaces because he planned it extremely poorly and it was a very small cemetery. So in front of the entire family, he started screaming and getting into the pastor’s face and the funeral director’s face. It was a sad sight to see.
I now try to keep as far away from him as possible and do the same with my wife and kids. He moved about 150 miles away a few years ago and I hardly see him more than once a year. Basically, the entire family is sick of him and tired of him mooching off everyone around him. For some added context, he and his current wife basically live off of their kids; if they aren’t old enough to work, he collects their social security checks, when they do get a job, he takes 100% of their income and spends their hard earned money on frivolous things such as Western Style clothing and cowboy hats. He is truly a man-child and a terrible human being.”
Carrot Top Gave A Volatile Performance That Night
“It was back in the late summer of 1994 and I was invited to a Carrot Top show.
About 20 minutes into the show, he started to freak out. It seemed as though the monitors weren’t working or something because he kept complaining about how funny his schtick was and how well his prop gags had gone over in other venues. To be clear – he was being amusing and the crowd was laughing along as one might expect. But he wasn’t getting any of that feedback for some reason and he started to spiral into losing it entirely. He yanked one prop after another out of his trunk, faster and faster, and louder and louder. Eventually, he had a complete breakdown, burst out into full-on tears, started sobbing, dropped everything, covered his face and ran off stage.
The crowd was confused because let’s face it, no one really knew what to expect from the guy. But he never did come back on stage and after another couple of minutes, the lights came on and we all left – 20 minutes into the show.”
“She Threw Herself On The Ground And Said…”
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“I am a paramedic. I was responding to an accident one day and the woman who caused the accident was screaming that the driver of the other car was ‘faking it for the insurance payout’ when we were loading him onto the stretcher.
When the cop told her they were in a bad way, she threw herself on the ground and said, ‘Well, if he can do it, then I have neck pain, too.’ Meanwhile, we were preemptively shaving this guy’s chest for the AED pads because he was decompensating so quickly.
Her purse was laying in the road, so we ran it over when we did a U-turn to leave for the hospital.
The guy ended up being okay but was probably in for a long recovery. Don’t text and drive, it’s always other people who have to pay the price for it.”
She Just Kept Digging Deeper And Deeper
“I was patrolling a park that protects endangered shorebirds when I observed a lady allowing two dogs to run, unleashed, along a natural shoreline. When I finally caught up with the lady, after she had walked more than a mile with the dogs running about, she tried to deny it. I asked her to come back to my patrol vehicle (to issue her a ticket) which was a half-mile away on a trail.
Along the way, she started yelling at me that I was harassing her and a lot of other similar comments. When we approached my vehicle, she wouldn’t stop and proceeded to the parking lot/her vehicle. She yelled at other visitors that a ‘crazy person’ was chasing her (me) and that she was going to call the police. Mind you, I am a police officer, and was dressed in my full uniform during the entire encounter. She called 911 and reached the local sheriff’s office, I was on my state radio relaying a similar message and requesting backup. She eventually got in her car and was about to getting yanked out and/or hit with OC spray for not following any lawful orders and, in my mind, attempting to flee. Eventually, backup arrived – a State trooper – and he managed to convince her that I was a legitimate police officer.
Unsurprisingly, it didn’t stop there. When she came to court, she brought all kinds of stuff with her, like the leashes she didn’t use, and a bunch of random pictures – some of which showed the dogs off leash.
Despite her acting like a total fool, the judge decided to dismiss the case if she did t have any additional issues within a six-month period.”
A Lifelong Friendship Ruined Over This?
“A few weeks ago, a guy I went to high school and was on the wrestling team with flipped out on the job site because he didn’t get an afternoon off. Problem is he didn’t say a thing about it to anyone and was supervising a crew on the job site. So he called our supervisor and was naturally denied because he didn’t give advanced notice.
So he went to his tool trailer and just ripped the stuffing out of it and threw everything in the street. After 10 minutes of this, he was exhausted from throwing tools in the heat and had the balls to try to order one of my guys to clean up and reorganize his trailer. I told him to get lost, and he completely lost it. He called me everything in the book, ripped his personal belongings out of his work truck, stuffed it all in his lunch box, and walked away.
He later called me twice to tell me what a dirtbag I am and then he gave me the greatest gift of all by having his wife call me to yell at me. Like him, I went to high school with her, and she and I were fairly close at one point.
I got back to the office and found out both he and his wife called two of our supervisors with the same complaints.
The kicker is that he claimed he needed time off to go to his kid’s baseball game, but when I got home and got onto Facebook, there he was posting pictures of him and his brother at a poker tournament.
Dude and I were friendly wrestling rivals in school and paintball buddies in our early 20s, but I lost all respect for him after everything went down.”
When All Else Fails, Lie
“I saw a wasted woman throw a massive temper tantrum trying to board a flight at the airport.
She was slurring her words, only partially coherent, and she couldn’t even walk straight. The poor gate agent tried to break it to her gently, offered to get her some water while they waited for a medic and security, assured her she could rebook her flight. This spoiled brat was not having it. She started YELLING that she absolutely had to get on this plane and nothing could stop her. Tried multiple times to board the plane, and eventually had to be physically restrained.
She started getting belligerent and threatening the employees that she would get them all fired. One of the people attempting to help her was wearing a turban and she started saying that she’d get him deported. She demanded every employee’s first and last name (their full names were on their name tags but she apparently didn’t notice this). When they gave her their full names, she kept demanding it (she must be used to employees she abuses refusing to give their full names, I guess) and insisting she was going to call corporate and get them all fired. The guy in the turban was so chill, he actually said, ‘Do you need me to spell my name for you? I guarantee it’s going to be a waste of your time and the company’s time and nothing will come of it.’
When it became clear that she wasn’t going to get what she wanted, she called her father on her cell phone and started screaming very loudly that she was being abused and asking her daddy to sue the airline and get all the employees fired.
‘DO YOU KNOW WHO MY FATHER IS? HE’S THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF NEW JERSEY.’
Security finally dragged her away at that point.
The funny thing is that I looked up the Attorney General of New Jersey at the time and he didn’t have any daughters.”
They Had No Idea How They Were Supposed To Help Him
“A veteran came into the clinic trying to apply for his VA benefits. I handed him the form and instructed him to turn it in with a copy of his DD214. He got mad and demanded to see a doctor right away. I asked him why but he wouldn’t tell me. We’ll see anyone on a humanitarian basis, even if they aren’t a veteran. If someone walks in having a heart attack the medical team will descend upon them. But this dude went into a rant about how he didn’t want the government to have his information because they were watching him. And I was like, but you served in the military (supposedly). They already know your social security number, date of birth, what you look like. You have to fill out the form so we can verify your eligibility for VA health care.
‘The government has no right to know how much money I make!’
Um, the IRS would disagree? He took the form and stormed out in a huff. He returned a week later and turned it in and wrote (in crayon, I swear to God!) a paragraph about how he’s not telling the government how much money he makes over the section of the form for reporting income. He screamed at me for a little bit then went out to the parking lot and paced for several minutes before getting in his car and leaving. I kind of felt bad for him. He clearly had mental health problems. I almost called the cops because he seemed like the active shooter type.”
A Not So Happy Meal
“It was 10:45 am on a Saturday in the McDonald’s drive-thru when a patron named Mickie came through. Now you’ve got to understand that we didn’t start serving lunch until 11 am on weekends, so that meant we couldn’t ring up orders for anything with French fries or chicken nuggets for another 15 minutes.
Mickie came through the drive-thru and I prompted her for her order.
Mickie: ‘I’d like two chicken nugget Happy Meals.’
Me: ‘Sorry, ma’am, we don’t serve lunch until 11. You could either come back in 15 minutes for lunch or order something off of the breakfast menu. I’m sorry for the inconvenience.’
Mickie: ‘What? That’s insane! 15 minutes? Id like two chicken nugget Happy Meals.’
Me: ‘I’m sorry ma’am, but I’m not able to ring those up for you right now.’
Mickie: ‘I’ll just sit here for 15 minutes – I don’t give a darn! I want my effing Happy Meals!’ Mind you, her kids are in the back seat.
Mickie then sat at the microphone telling us all about how she would write a strongly worded letter to corporate, how she would sue us to the ground, and how horrible of people we were for doing this to her children. This went on for five or six minutes until, all at once, it all stopped
Silence.
Mickie: ‘Fine…I’ll take three hash browns and an orange juice.’
Me: ‘That’ll be $4.37 at the next window, thanks!’
The best part was she could have ordered Happy Meals by the time she got her order.”
She Had Enough Of His “Hissy Fits”
“I had a boyfriend who would throw tantrums, and by that I mean he would let all his rage build up until he yelled it out in one voice-cracking blow that no one had any idea what to do with.
Once his meal took longer than mine, by like, a lot. Instead of canceling the order or getting it boxed or sharing mine, which I offered, he waited until we paid and then yelled at the wait staff that they made us miss our show, which they had no idea about.
He also threw an all-night hissy fit because I was roasting his marshmallow and it dripped off into the campfire, and he refused to discuss it.
I got the silent treatment one night because I made a meal with some ingredient he didn’t like. He was grumpy for hours, I kept asking him what was wrong to which he declared, ‘I told you before I don’t like X!’
When I finally broke up with him, he had a lot of complaints about me, which were new to me, so when I asked for examples, he angrily yelled that it would just start an argument.
I can’t stand people who would rather scream out their emotions and run away than risk confrontation.”
That’s One Way To Run A Game Studio
“I had a former co-worker who had a history of throwing tantrums. He was a well-educated person; he had a science-based Ph.D. but he had opted to make a career of making video games as a programmer. For the purposes of these tales, we will refer to him as Hamish.
The first incident was when he tried to talk to the lead artist on the project. The artist was facing his monitor, listening to music. Hamish walked up behind and just start talking to the artist, who was blithely unaware that Hamish was there and so naturally did not respond.
But Hamish didn’t like the fact that the artist was not holding up his end of the conversation and in response, had a total moment of rage. He started kicking a chair at an unused desk, so viciously, it reminded me of the curb stomp from ‘American History X.’ All the time while stomping the castors off the poor office chair, Hamish was swearing and shouting about how people shouldn’t ignore him.
Another time, one of the audio guys came into the room to discuss with Hamish the placement of sounds effects, and sound effect types. The discussion went on to the subject of using reverb for echoes and the sound guy and Hamish got into a discussion on if echoes could be heard if the game camera was in an area marked as ‘reverb’ or not. The discussion started to get heated – well – on Hamish’s side at least. The audio guy was calm, reasonable and offered to demonstrate why his argument on when you hear echoes was correct.
Hamish absolutely lost his cool (not that he ever had any). He started shouting about how he was right. Audio guy calmly reiterated his stance and repeated his offer of a demonstration to show why he thought he was right. Hamish stood up and shouted: ‘I have a Ph.D., don’t lecture me on how sound works! You’re just a person who makes sounds and music – not a scientist! You don’t know anything!’
At which point, Hamish kicked his chair (he really had it in for those poor office chairs), barged past the audio guy and we didn’t see him for the rest of the day, or the next day.
He also had some other minor meltdowns, too. When he was somehow promoted to the technical lead of the team, I heard that his way of dealing with team members not following his demands or having differing views on things was for him to march into the studio director’s office and demand that the person in question be fired. Rather than you know, being a leader and dealing with it person to person.”
It’s Just One Thing After Another For This Guy
“My mom hired her friend’s son, a fat, unemployed loser in his 40s, to do some odd jobs around the house.
He knew our house is non-smoking, as I’ve had cancer and am concerned about my health. He wanted a smoke, so he sat in the garden, right next to the back door. A strong wind was blowing the smoke into the house, so I shut the door. When he finished, he stormed in, and towered over me and yelled at me for about five minutes, things like, ‘Little Miss Prissy, you never shut the door on a guest,’ over and over, then switched to yelling about completely unrelated topics, screaming at me that I should tidy my bedroom.
Then he started screaming at me for never having a conversation with him, which is stupid because whenever he talked to me, I talked back. But seriously, all he ever talked about was how great Brexit was because now ‘Johnny Foreigner’ wouldn’t be stealing our jobs anymore, even though he had never even tried to get a job except for doing odd jobs for his dad’s friends. I was actually really scared and upset. Then he screamed, ‘I’m not staying here to be treated like this!’ And got in his car and drove away. Unfortunately, my mother then invited him back (as he is so much cheaper than a real workman) and now I’m worried about having to keep seeing him.
I mean, seriously, you work in a non-smoking home, shut the door when you are smoking outside. And if not, don’t be offended or surprised when someone else shuts the door.”
They Still Don’t Know Why She Was So Mad
“I was at a supermarket and the woman in front of me was acting like a child. She was in her 40s and wearing some formal clothes, so this surprised me a bit. She snatched the receipt out of the cashier’s hands, crumbling it in the process. Then she screamed at the 17-year-old cashier, ‘What this trash is’ and shoved the receipt in the cashier’s face. Then she went back down to her stuff and started putting it in her bag, but then walked back up to the cashier halfway through and said, ‘This is unbelievable, you should be ashamed!’
During all of this, I had no idea what her problem actually was. Neither did the cashier. We just looked at each other and kind of laughed at the crazy lady.
The lady then turned to me and asked what my problem was. I told her: ‘You are an adult, behave like one. Nobody wants to listen to your nonsense.’ She started yelling: ‘You’re disgusting! Move out the way, little boy! Get away from me!’ Half the store was looking at us. I just kept telling her to ‘have a really nice day.’
She sped past me and walked super fast to her car. Then, as I was walking home down a gravel path, she came from behind in her car, accelerated and flew past me, leaving a huge dust cloud behind her car.
My friend and I just looked at each other and said: ‘What was her problem?'”
It Sounds Like She Never Grew Up
“My sister-in-law had a meltdown because my wife and I wanted to take her to a local restaurant that specialized in big sandwiches. I’m talking poundage here. Things are huge and amazingly delicious. Well, the fact that we were willing to pay out of our pocket for her and my brother didn’t matter. I should note here that at the time, my wife was less than a year out from a leukemia diagnosis, and I’m a disabled veteran so we don’t have a lot of money because neither of us can work).
My sister-in-law decided that a ‘sandwich isn’t a meal,’ and refused to go. We tried to tell her that they do serve other things like a normal restaurant, but no. All she could respond with was ‘a sandwich isn’t a meal.’ After about an hour of this, I lost my cool and proceeded to flip out on her. She started the waterworks and everything went to chaos from there. The night ended with us going to where she wanted to go. I haven’t been on the greatest of terms with her since then.
The same woman had another meltdown shortly after my brother married her and told her that she needed to transfer student loans that were in her father’s name to herself because she was a grown woman that needed to take care of her own finances at that point. That didn’t happen.
She is not a great person to begin with then you add in the fact that she acts like a child on top of that. I constantly feel sorry for my brother.”