Some families are the absolute worst people, and some people simply should not be allowed to own pets. In this case, this mother and son duo turned out to be both. Having to deal with the demonic duo, we’ll call him John, the unfortunate soul encountered Janine (a tyrant of a mother) and Bradley (an extremely entitled child) while working one shift at a mom and pop fish store. As you can tell from the title, things escalated quickly while the pair of deviants were shopping in the store.

During a rather slow and uneventful day and right before store closing, the not-so-lovely pair of Janine and Bradley decided they were going to go to the pet shop to get a fish for young Bradley. As they walk in, John got a good look at both of them as they walked through the door – Janine was an average looking person with no real unique features, except for her poorly-dyed blond hair and an outfit that screamed “midlife crisis!” Bradley, on the other hand, was a typical snot-nosed kid, bursting through the door without looking up from his gaming device. It seemed that he payed even less attention when he ate, as his tee shirt was riddled with a barrage of multicolored stains which more than likely came from a series of different meals.
The two walked through the store loudly while Bradley managed to place his greasy hands on every surface imaginable. John knew he was in for it.

As Bradley gets fussy over the game he’s losing on his handheld, Janine decides enough is enough and takes the gaming device from Bradley which sends him into an all-out tantrum. He quickly gets over it, as once he sees the variety of fishes available for sale, his attention gets quickly diverted. Although the shop has a very large selection of fish, most children are drawn to the two types of fish from the Disney movie Finding Nemo, and Bradley was no exception. After getting more of his greasy fingerprints on the other displays, he zeroes in on one poor unsuspecting fish which just so happens to be the same species as Dory (one of the main characters in Finding Nemo). He starts screaming “Dory!! Dory!! Dory!!!” over and over again. John then walks over to the mom to see if he can help them quickly pick out a fish and leave the store before he has to close. At least that was the initial plan.

John walks up and casually says, “Hey there, how’s your night going? Do you need any help?” Janine, who seems beyond herself that a store associate would come and speak to her directly rolls her eyes at his questions and says very rudely “how much for this thing..“
John, now understanding that he is not going to have a pleasant exchange with Janine, promptly informs her that the fish, due to its decent size and need for salt water is priced at $160. Janine did not like that at all. Instead, Janine reaches into her purse and slams $30 onto the counter and says, “that’s all you’re getting from me, now bag the fish.” John was now insulted and also frustrated himself. While he could have just turned her down and asked again for the original price, John asks this woman whether or not she has a saltwater tank at home. This sets her off beyond belief.

The now crazed mother quickly responded to John, “none of your flipping business as to what tank I have at home, now bag the dang fish you bum!” John simply refuses and slides the $30 back to Janine, who then quickly slides the money back. At this point Bradley is getting impatient that his mother has not gotten him a fish yet, and began to shriek at the top of his lungs. Instead of calming her child down, Janine begins to encourage him to scream louder and berates John for not budging on the price. She began saying things to Bradley like “sorry sweetie, this guy doesn’t want you to have the fish, he’s perfectly fine with you having no fish friend to make you happy.”
She then lays into John, telling him he should be ashamed of himself and that he was “breaking her angel’s little heart.” She then proceeded to get much more aggressive.

Janine then began to rip into John by using anti-semitic slurs and showed no signs of slowing down. All the while, John’s manager was in the back closing down the store’s registers and getting prepared to lock up. John then explained this to Janine and told her that they needed to leave the store. She refused. While Janine and John continued to go back and forth, the still-shrieking Bradley had made his way back over to the fish tanks, this time actually STICKING his hands into one of the tanks. It was around this time that John’s manager finally emerged from the back room to give him some assistance. Out of nowhere, Bradley’s yelling turned into a sudden, blood-curdling scream.

While reaching into a tank with the intent to grab a rock, Bradley instead clamped down on a long-spined urchin which promptly sent its stingers right into his hand. He jerked his hand back out of the tank, taking with him the initial rock he had tried to grab and a very unlucky pom pom crab who just so happened to climb on the opposite side of the rock just in time for it to be displaced. Now, although the kid deserved to get stung for being such a brat, urchin stings are very poisonous. John was now less focused on the expletive-riddled lecture he was getting from Janine and more so on making sure his boss was calling paramedics to treat the sting. Amid all the chaos, Bradley had found a new way to show his frustration.

The unsuspecting pom pom crab had become the victim of Bradley’s rage, as he grabbed the crab with his good hand and proceeded to EAT IT. When John realized what had happened, all that was left of the poor crab was an arm and a claw, both of which were hanging out of Bradley’s mouth. Because the snot-nosed kid was too busy eating a live animal, his screaming had stopped, which unfortunately gave Janine a new opportunity to resume her verbal tirade.

The crazed mother restarted her tantrum by repeatedly pummeling John with her heavy purse, screaming about how John and his boss had hurt her child and that they would pay for putting them through all of this trouble. John lost it. The interaction went something like this:
John: “Your kid shoved his hand into a tank, one with toxic animals nonetheless and did this to himself. Now please calm down and leave him alone so when the paramedics get here they can get the spines out!”
Janine: “HOW DARE YOU!? YOU EXPECT ME TO LET MY ANGEL SUFFER? IF YOU JUST SOLD ME THE STUPID FISH THIS WOULD HAVE NEVER OF HAPPENED!”
John: “Your kid reached into the tank and ATE a crab, what in God’s name did you teach this kid?”
Janine: “DON’T YOU EVER, EVER TELL ME HOW TO RAISE MY ANGEL! HE HAD THE RIGHT TO EAT THAT CRAB, YOU TOOK SOMETHING FROM HIM AND HE TOOK SOMETHING FROM YOU.”
At this point John was absolutely dumbfounded by Janine’s reasoning, and just before temperatures boiled over, the paramedics finally made their way to the store with the police in tow.

The paramedics rushed into the store, and forcibly restrained the once-again squealing Bradley to a gurney and took him to the back of the ambulance so they could begin removing the spines from his hand. While the crab-eater was getting his hand taken care of, the police came to speak with John, John’s boss, and Janine about what had happened. Unsurprisingly, Janine tried to pin the entire situation on John, going as far as telling the officers that John had thrown the urchin at Bradley, and in a panic the boy had eaten the crab. The cops actually began to believe her story! That was the case until John’s boss offered up something that would clear their names and prove that Janine and her crummy son were the ones in the wrong.

John’s boss directed the officers to the back room, where he proceeded to show them the security footage from the altercation. Janine’s lies soon unravelled, and the cops slapped cuffs on her after seeing her beat John with her purse, one that she had shoved a rock in to make it heavier! That’s when John noticed that she had seriously cut his leg with the jagged rock sticking out of the purse and was now bleeding. He didn’t feel anything due to the sheer shock caused by the situation. The police took Janine to their squad car and told her she was under arrest for aggravated assault, while John made his way over to the ambulance to get his leg taken care of. In total, John needed eight stitches to seal up his wound, and his boss gave him a $300 bonus for how well he handled the situation, as well as covered the medical costs related to his leg.
It would make sense for the story to end here, but it turns out that this family was much crazier and much more criminal than they made out to be.

As it turns out, Janine’s husband just so happened to be a known speed dealer that the police had yet to nail down. Janine was facing huge fines and jail time for the aggravated assault against John, and it was discovered she was abusing prescription pills, as it turns out that her in-store explosion was the result of meltdown of popping way too many of them. John figured this would be enough to convince her to rat out her husband. Seeing how she reacted that fateful night, Janine was capable of some crazy stuff.

John was never called to court despite the charges he pressed. so all that he could hope is that justice would be served. At the end of it all, John was left with one surreal day at work he is sure to never forget. As we’re surely all thinking, John reflected that he hopes Janine is rotting in jail and Bradley got out of that toxic environment and is getting the love and direction he deserves.
