Shocking public scenes (that you *haven't* started!)

In My Humble Opinion
21

This isn’t the most shocking, really, but it’s the first that comes to mind. Couple of years ago at a college football game: CSU versus Wyoming. “The Border War” I guess they call it out here.

We’re in bleacher seats near one end zone and a group of kids – 15, 16 years old, maybe – that were seated at the top of the stands start chucking popcorn, peanuts and other assorted garbage down at this one dude sitting there with his girlfriend. No real reason they picked this guy, as far as I could tell. The dude gets hit in the head, he looks up the stands, he sees those kids there – pretty much by themselves… and he lets it go. It happens again, no big deal, rah bah bah. The third time he gets pegged with something, though, he jumps up and screams at one particular kid.

“If I get hit one more time, I’m coming up there to beat the [hell] out of YOU.” He indicates one kid out of the pack. “No matter who throws it, you’re the guy I’M throwing off the side of the stadium.” I’m sitting there completely uninvolved and simply recording my personal notes on mankind, but admittedly impressed. Get one of them to work for you! That was certainly a better solution to it than what I could have thought of.

Needless to say the little gromits all of a sudden didn’t have anything else to chuck for the rest of the game. It’s funny how their supply of refuse dried up right then.

(Oh, and two other warring factions of teenagers, completely separate from the aforementioned tale, CRYING like banshees with skinned knees when the cops pulled them away from each other and off to jail or wherever. It was like that one music video “Beat It” right before our very eyes, except much more pathetic.)

22

I’m sure plenty people here have seen fights before, no big deal. This one was kind of my first that I saw between grown men.

As I was leaving the mall with my Dad we were going through some department store (Sears?). As we’re walking out a guy that looked pretty big (strong big, but he was wearing a big bulky down coat) was walking with his girlfriend/wife to presumably return the miniature suit that he was carrying (that was apparently for his son). Two other big guys in coats walked by and said something to him, I couldn’t hear exactly but something about the little suit being for him although I’m sure it would have been more vulgar had I heard it entirely. The guy turned around and started yelling back at him about how it was for his son, his girlfriend/wife started tugging at him to keep walking, but he headed towards the two other guys. I turned, then I heard a noise and turned back around and saw a cart (the kind they stack clothes on and leave out in the middle of walkways and paths) come rolling down the aisle and see a scuffle. It was hard to tell what exactly was happening, one guy was kind of halfway standing and two other guys were on the ground and my were there feathers. Feathers, and feathers, and feathers, and feathers. Feathers everywhere, with all of the feathers coming out of this little huddle was so cartoonish. Pretty creepy to a kid in grade school that saw his first real fight.

23

I’ll never forget being in Sears at the age of 10 or so. Just standing there with my mom when all of a sudden we hear somebody crying/screaming excruciatingly loud. It doesn’t stop after about 5 minutes so we go try to find out what is going on. We see a crowd gathered by the bottom of one of the escalators. From other members of the crowd, we learned that some boy got his shoelace caught at the bottom of the escalator and it had pulled his foot into it before shutting off (this was back before they had the emergency shut off switches). I never actually saw the kid but he never stopped screaming the whole time we were there (another 20-25 minutes maybe). It still haunts me to the point that I always check my shoelaces before getting on escalator.

24

Ok I am about to vent here.

I worked in the movie theatre business for many years. I have thrown masturbating men out of Disney films (as well as Natural Born Killers) and I have had to deal with people who can’t use movie phone properly and start screaming me because they didn’t know they had to bring their credit card to the theatre to pick up the tickets. No all of those scenes do not compare to wedding.
Now you might think that a wedding is a happy occasion. But I’m telling you that the wedding in Holy Grail would have been preferable.

Some Background

I am the youngest of six kids. (two boys, two girls and then two more boys) My brother, who was the youngest of five until I came along has probably ‘had issues’ with me since before I was born. Now , He likes the spotlight. He likes to be the center of attention. Anytime I received positive attention he would move in and cut me down. Growing up I tended to keep a low profile but when you are the groom you get a lot of attention. . Most of the choices I took into consideration how he would react to it. (Actually I constantly hear his voice critiquing my every move.) We mad sure to have a vegetarian option on the menu. Who are the vegetarians in attendance? My brother and his wife. Now for various reasons I did not have any of my brothers in my wedding party. It’s my choice so they can just deal. When we announced that we were getting married (7 months before this) my mother told his daughter that she would be the flower girl. My wife and I nixed this idea. No flower girl and no ring bearer. My niece was not very upset as she was only four at the time. Much latter we realized that we need people to bring up the gifts. (in mass someone brings up the water and the wine and the communion hosts, these are the gifts) So my wife asked my sister to have her kids do this. She has twin sons (11 at the time) and a daughter who was 7. The boys serve as alter boys at their home church. Now in planning the wedding and reception we come to several choices that were made specifically to appease my brother. We ‘chose’ him to do one of the readings. (Catholic Mass) For the reception my in-laws for weddings have a no pre-teen rule. (Very formal wedding here) Several of my wife’s cousins fell into this category and the older ones got hired (by me) to sort of run a kid party at my in-laws house. I have two siblings with children that would go to this party. My sister said ‘Thank God,!’ My brother is divorced and only sees his little girl a few times a year and he didn’t like the idea. I guess he wanted to spend every moment of ‘his’ time with her, although he wasn’t doing that the entire weekend. I also planned a non-traditional rehearsal dinner. I wanted to get to spend time with my family so all of them (not just the wedding party) and some of my wife’s came to a picnic at a park. I did make sure that there were some portebello (sp) mushrooms for he and his wife but those got lost somewhere… At the rehearsal tensions are high because my wife is late and the priest needs to be somewhere else. So he starts with the readers. My brother is an actor and knows how to project his voice. He started reading in a somewhat quiet voice. The priest asked him to speak up. He started reading just a little bit louder. The priest asked him to speak up. He then BELLOWED out the reading. (this is in the church that my in-laws attend and have attended for most of their lives) He then stomps down and glares at the priest and BELLOWS out WAS THAT LOUD ENOUGH? Then he throws the piece of paper that his reading was typed on to the floor and walks out and leaves for the rehearsal dinner. I don’t think he could have been any worse unless he took a dump in the baptismal fountain. I am shaking with rage and my wife walks in at the end of this and between the stress and migraine headache she is getting she has a little crying bit. This brings up in me every time I had a crying bit caused by the torment he handed me for the last 33 years. I reswallow my bile and ask my mother to do the reading in his place. When I get to the picnic grounds I have rented for the day he is there and comes up to me and tersely says ‘We have to talk.’ “We sure do.” I reply and he launched into me about how could I have our sisters kids have a part in the ceremony and not his! I am going to destroy her self image for the rest of her life. I point out that she is only 5 and I have know her mother isn’t raising her Catholic so this is the first mass she is attending and how my wife has many cousins who would be next in line anyway. I inform him that he is being replaced as a reader and he say “All right let’s go.” He is not inviting me to a movie no my brother challenged me to a fight at my rehearsal diner. I just put down my glasses and said bring it on. He taunts me with ‘You’re going to look funny in you wedding photos with a black eye and how he is going to whip my ass. I make a mistake at this point. I tell him how if I can’t whip his ass there are about 30 people who come over and finish the job for me while pointing to the gathering crowd about 50 yards away. I should have let him throw his punch so everyone could know the true face of the demon that I had to share a room with until I was 15. I should have let everyone see just how low he really is. But he then backs down and just goes back to the party and pretends that nothing is wrong. But his curse on my wedding photos was done. I look pissed off in most of them and I get pissed off looking at them.

The thing that really burns me is that I know he thinks that he is the wronged party and is blameless. Other then nodding and smiling at him at the reception I really haven’t spoken to him since. (almost 4 years)

Well actually we did speak at another brothers funeral a year ago. I should relate his behavior there as it fits into this thread as well but I have a headache now from recalling this and can’t take the double whammy now.

Sorry for the length and for the fact that parts of it won’t make any sense but I just felt the need to add this to the list.

25

Zebra, that’s a terrible story. I’m very sorry about all of that.

26

Sounds like a good start there Zebe. What an @sshole!

27

Lissa, I told your story to my roommate Hamish. Would you like to know what he said?

“Yup, that happened to me.”
“Yup, that happened to me.”
“Yup, that happened to me.”

There are some scary people out there, folks. Be nice to your service people.

28

A prisoner in the box tried to peg the judge with her used tampon. As the cops wrestled with her, she went on about HepV and AIDS. She was jambed up against another prisoner, a tough male, who freaked. Things sort of went downhill.

29

Well, technically, I DIDN’T start this one, but alas…

Coming home from high school on a normal day. Taking the CTA Blue Island Line to the Cook County Courthouse, then transferring to a southbound California bus. Well, like happens frequently, my bus passes Kelly H.S. at the time it lets out. Sigh. Imagine them filling up the bus, acting totally impervious to anyone else already on the bus. Most of the time the driver has to close the door and refuse more people because people are squished in like sardines. Numbnuts somehow manage to pull the emergency exit for the rear bus door.

Anyway, I’m sitting, and I get up and pull the string to let the driver know I wanted to get off at 51st. Well, I couldn’t push through the people to get to the back door to get off (it was still broken, meaning, it would open at anytime, not just when the driver opened it from up front). Well, I get to the back door halfway between 51st and 52nd (the next stop, no big deal), and some asshole apparently didn’t like the fact that I must have pushed him or something trying to get off the bus (it was still packed). So, the bus is cruising along at 30mph, when Mr. Asshole and his friends (probably didn’t help that I was white, and his friends were black) shove me out the back door. Missed a lightpost by about 5 feet, landed in some grass. Of course, the bus stops, the assholes immediately take off on foot. Somehow I managed to walk to a corner store and called 911 and home. The cops came, but they couldn’t do too much, and I refused ambulance treatment, since I really didn’t feel too bad, some scrapes. Course, I had one helluva whiplash the next day and the two days after.

30

I think i’ve told this story here before.

I used to manage The Last American Diner and we got some fairly busy weekday lunches. The Diner, being a local landmark, attracted a peculiar mix of regular customers and tourists.

This particular summer day, a group of regulars consisting of several developmentally disabled adults and their attendants came in for lunch. Nothing unusual about that - they were a good group and always friendly and enthusiastic about mostly mediocre Diner fare. You could tell they had a great time coming there.

One of the DD women, probably between 25 and 30, went to use the restroom while the rest of the party stayed at the table. A few minutes later she exited the bathroom and started to make her way back to her party, STARK NAKED. She had removed all of her clothing and was now sauntering through the nearly full restaurant. Her attendant spotted her pretty quickly and he made his way to intercept her about 20 feet from the restroom, right at the edge of the smoking section.

As he approached, the screaming started. Someone fetched her clothes from the ladies room (the other attendant? - I don’t remember clearly) as he tried to get her back to the bathroom. She began to struggle, and flail and scream even louder. Ultimately, this resulted in a full “take down” of the naked woman with the two attendants holding her down and wrestling her clothes back on her the best they could. All the while she was screaming incoherent bloody murder. From all appearances it looked like a brutal rape was happening in the back of the smoking section.

Meanwhile, all I could do was skate around the dining room refilling water and ice tea and say, “It’s OK, he knows what he’s doing.” and “It’s alright, sorry for the disruption.” Casting furtive looks in their direction while trying to pretend it wasn’t happening.

That’s the best story. There are more though. Maybe I’ll post them too if this thread sticks around.

31

When I was in college, I spent a few summers driving a beer truck. One day, I was on a rural route, delivering beer to the concession stand/ranger station at a local lake. I noticed a bass boat coming in to dock, a little too fast I thought, and I heard the two fishermen on it arguing loudly - and drunkenly.
The boat hit the dock fairly hard - not hard enough to do any real damage, but hard enough to knock them both off their feet to the deck. The one who had been closer to the wheel bellowed profanity at the one in the bow, who jumped off the boat onto the dock. His `friend’ jumped off after him, tackled him, and begain raining wildly swung blows on him. They both got to their feet and began flailing drunkenly at one another, only connecting once in a while.
The rangers were evidently all out on the lake at the time, and the concession stand attendant ran inside to call the sheriff. I wasn’t about to get in the middle of those two, and as it turned out I didn’t need to, because the one who had been steering the boat suddenly noticed that since no one had tied it up, it was now drifting back out into the lake. He ceased beating at his companion and jumped into the lake to swim after his boat. I lost track of his companion as I watched him swim out to it, until I noticed a pickup truck, with an empty boat trailer, spraying gravel as it sped out of the parking lot. The guy in the boat was very upset that his buddy had stolen his truck and trailer! When I went back to restock the stand the next week, I found out that the one was arrested for operating a boat under the influence, and the other for DWI - but not for auto theft, and neither for assault.
I guess the moral here is, “Choose your fishing buddies wisely!”

32

This happened at my bookshop a couple months ago. I walked in during the middle of the scene, but have since been informed about what occurred previously. FTR, this is a nice bookstore in a nice suburban town.

A woman came into the shop on a Sunday morning with her two daughters, ages 7 and 2, plus or minus. She asked my coworker Kelly if we had any books on dog shows. Apparently, her elder daughter was going to do a report on dog shows for school, or something. So, Kelly checked the computer, and it didn’t look like we had anything useful in the store. She offered to order something in, but the woman became extremely agitated, and, holding her baby in one arm and a plastic Tonka truck in the other hand, ran around the sales counter and started attacking my coworker with the toy truck.

This is when I walked in.

The first words I heard as I walked into the store were “You fucking bitch! What the fuck is the matter with you? You hit a woman with a child!” And so on. While she attacked my coworker. Kelly was completely shocked and sputtered, “Get out! I’m calling the police!” The woman yelled back, “I hope you do, you bitch! What the fuck is your problem? You don’t hit women with children!” And she dragged her kids out of the store.

I don’t think I need to say that there is no way my coworker would ever hit a customer, with or without a child. The very idea is completely ludicrous. I don’t know what could have possibly set this woman off. Anyway, we called the police and gave statements, but I don’t know if anything ever happened as a result; we were primarily worried about the safety of the children in the hands of someone so obviously violently unbalanced.

In a non-violent weird public scene. One of my professors in college had a breakdown in the middle of class once. This was a large lecture class (about 250 students) and a guy in the very back got up to leave in the middle of a lecture. She stopped the lecture and asked, “You! In the back! Where are you going?” Clearly very startled at her caring in the slightest, he said, “I have a midterm. I have to study for it.” Anyway, this set her off on a rant about students not showing her any respect that lasted about ten minutes and ended with her crying.

BTW, she was probably the worst professor I ever had, breakdown notwithstanding.

33

With almost five years of experience in the “security industry” (read: bouncer and concert) I have seen a lot of silly shit go down.

Anecdote 1:
(false names used because it seems weird not to)

background info:

At this college bar I used to bounce at, there was this couple, Tim and Marce, who were regs. They would come in all the time, and at least once a month Tim would get unholy drunk and slap Marce around. None of us understood this, becuase Marce was totally hot, an accomplished martial artist and kickboxer. She actually came there because I met her at my school.

In any case, once a month we would have to jump on Tim and throw him out when they started yelling at one another. We would call the cops as soon as we threw him out because we knew that Marce would follow him out, and we could only watch helplessly as he slapped the shit out of her and she just took it. This is because there is some stupid law in that city that says you can’t so something to someone on public property once you toss them. Whatever.

Anyway, a couple weeks have gone by and Tim and Marce haven’t had it out so we’re starting to expect it. Sure enough, they start to argue and swear at each other, and Tim makes like he’s gonna pimp-slap Marce. I’m right behind him and grab him and toss him out. Marce is right behind me, following him out, like always… or maybe not.

Big scene:
As soon as they are outside, as we’re on the phone to the cops, we something beautiful:

Tim reaches back like a pimp to bitch-slap Marce. She drops into a stance, ducks under Tim’s clumsy ho-check, and SLAMS a perfect palm strike into his crotch. Before he can collapse, she shrieks up from her crouched position with a mother upper-cut and rattles his eyeballs. He hits the ground like a sack of potatoes, as we look on in slack-jawed awe.
She continues to curse at him, kicking the ever-loving shit out of this guy as he lay unconscious on the sidewalk. By the time the cops got there she had stopped and just stood by as they scooped Tim up and put him in an ambulance. We later found out that he suffered a concussion, four broken ribs, a broken wrist, a dislocated pelvis (however the hell that happens) and got 10 stitches in his concussed head-piece.
Now that fucker got what he deserved. Marce got off on self-defense, which is to say she only got a year of probation.

That wasn’t the weirdest thing I’ve ever “scene” though. That has to go to one that I started…
anecdote 2

Same bar, many moons later. As a bouncer, you don’t really beat the shit out of people so much as you “restrain and remove” them.
So in the interest of doing so, I’m muscling this dude to the front doors one night. The way this was typically done in my bar was to push the door open with your hip and then chuck the guy out onto the wide downtown sidewalks. Then you could shut the door while they were recovering and prepare for if they attempted to get back in.

Well, all is going as planned. I have this guy in sort of a chicken-wing-sleeper-hold type thing and he’s fightin’ me every step of the way. We get to the doors, I bump it open with my hip and toss the dude bodily out the door.

…Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of humor…

…and toss the guy out bodily. Right smack into one of those mountain-bike cops. The fact that they were on a collision course still blows my mind.

Anyway, I toss the guy and he takes out a bike-cop. The cop eats shit over the hood of a parked car Wayne’s World style, and lands in the street. He gets up, all pissed off, and comes around the car. His helmet is all askew, his face is red, his gear is all turned around, and he is fuming. He looks at his bike, which is all fucked up with a huge dent in the front tire, and grabs the guy who ran into him. He cuffs him, and calls for backup. They arrest the guy, stuff him into a squad car and take him away. He’s screaming that it wasn’t his fault the whole time.

As this is all going down, I’m standing behind the mirrored facade of the bar in which I work, thinking “No fuckin’ way that just happened!”

That was shocking. And in public, so I guess it qualifies. Either way, it was hilarious.

34

Lex, you’ve told that story twice now, and I’ve laughed till I nearly pissed both times. :smiley:

–Tim

35

Some stories never get old, I guess. Er maybe they do, I don’t know. I just try to bring a little sunshine into everyone’s day…
sniff

Hold me, Tim. Where are you going? Don’t run away from your feelings!

36

I remember my old Job, I had a supervisor that hated me. One night she got mad at me for something or other and she came into the cafeteria and started screaming at me at the top of her lungs. I worked at a hospital, so screaming was not uncommon, but after a while a huge crowd gathered. I was crying by this time because I did not know what to do, customers were backing up. I decided to leave the department and call our head supervisor because I had no clue what else to do, I was so upset I hit a wall and about knoked myself out. I finally blindly made it to a phone to call and he told me to leave- so I went back to get my coat and my supervisor was still there screaming. By this time someon had called my house and told someone to come get me, SO my mother walks in because she thought something was wrong. My supervisor proceeded to call my mom names and then told her she did a lousy job raising me. Needless to say we left quickly. The next day I was blamed for the whole thing and was written up, and Our head supervisor told me to grow up and learn how to behave. Now I remember, it was because i told her that i had to close the grill down and reclean it because someone had spilled something on it. Anyway he also told me that my mother was not allowed back in the department because she had hurled racial slurs at the other supervisor(not true)
By this time I was crying again and a crowd yet again began to gather, I turned around and tried to walk away because I was determined to go put in my two weeks , and who should I run into but the original supervisor who started it, she claimed i intentionally pushed her and tried to attack me , hairnet and all.
I did not work there much longer after that

37

2 Short stories to amuse yourselves with.

  1. Went to Amsterdam and was sitting in one of the ‘cafes’ chilling out nicely.
    All of a sudden this bloke just stands up and starts shouting at random people. A couple of blokes go up to him and ask him to calm down (nice and relaxed :)) so he does.
    About half an hour later this bloke stands up… walks outside… drops his kecks and starts to palm one off in the middle of the afternoon!

the mind boggles.

  1. Queueing up in MacDonalds and an Asian man barges past me and starts shouting at the cashier.

‘I wanted a Cheeseburger’ He shouts. The cashier assures him that he’s got a cheeseburger.

‘NO… A CHEESEBURGER’ he replies ‘This has MEAT in it, i’m a vegetarian, it’s against my religion’

The cashier seems stunned, and trys to explain that a cheeseburger HAS meat in it, but the man is getting increasingly more agitated. I think he ended up getting a free Veggie meal from the management… but you have to wonder at some people. :slight_smile:

38

This one is pretty tame. I once worked at this mail order toy company as an order taker. The office was run entirely by 4 women - the accountant, the office manager, the owner and me. One day, the owner storms into the office in this rage, and in front of everyone, growls in my face, “You have your period, don’t you?!”

I thought this was a joke at first, but no, this woman was entirely serious. I was too shocked to do anything but say yes to the shrieking harpy. She then turns around and then blames me for her getting her period early! As it turns out, everyone had synchronized to her cycle, but me and my peasant pheremones were strong enough to throw her off. Served the witch right, I say.

39

Well I was a participant in this scene, but I didn’t start it.

My brothers, sister and I (I’m 2 of 6) as well as spouses & children were having a BBQ at my sisters place. She lived in one of those Apt buildings with a huge courtyard and benches in the center. My ex wife was holding our son who at the time was 6mos old. It was a nice day and we were having a great time. That’s when my older brother and his GF show up. (I should mention that my older brother and I rarely got along before this. He had a habit of bullying me when we were kids, he’s 3 years older)

My Ex and his gf were good friends. she asked me to take the baby while she went to help his gf get things out of the car. My brother was leaning against the car. I can see an animated discussion take place between my brother and my ex. Then my brother comes walking up to me. My ex tells me my brother need to borrow some money and she said no.

My brother ask me directly, I also say no. He says “oh, so your b@#%h is running things”. I say no you should try and pay people back before borrowing again. (At the time he owed me at least $300). He then proceeds to hit me, right in the face. I’m still holding my son. So I just wrapped my arms around him as I fell to the concrete. My ex freaks and takes the baby. If I have ever been more pissed of, I don’t remember it.

I got up, kicked him in the groin and start beating him.
The fight then proceeds all over the court yard. My sister tries to break it up, my younger brothers pull us apart. They tell me to go in my sisters place (upstairs). My wife is already there with the baby. Before I can even ask if he’s all right my older brother is banging on the sreen door demanding that I come back out and finish things.

I’m so mad I don’t even think. I rush and slam into the sceen door with as much force as possible. The screen door slams into my older brother sending him crashing into the railing, which began to separate from the stairs. He falls down the stairs and grabs my legs, so I’m falling with him. When I get my bearings again (lying at the bottom of the stairs) there are about 10 cops standing there.

My Mom wouldn’t speak to either of us for a week (me because I refused to drop the charges). I still barely speak to my older brother.

40

Yes!
[Hijack] Do people (other relatives) give you a hard about not speaking to him? [/Hijack]