Tantrums Aren’t Just For Toddlers

A few years ago, I was working in a video game shop. A guy in his mid- to late twenties came in already angry as he had dropped his phone in the parking lot and cracked the screen. He was arguing on the phone with his father, getting increasingly irate as his dad wouldn’t buy him a new one.

Then, the card reader failed because his chip was broken, he knew it was broken, and he had no other way to pay. He screamed like a feral warthog, football-spiked his phone onto the floor, snatched it back up, and stomped out, leaving me to sweep up shards of glass.