When a stranger yells at you, it’s pretty scary.
Especially when you’ve done absolutely nothing wrong.
What do you do in that situation?
Do you argue back, or do you just get yourself out of there?
This was the situation faced by the woman in this story recently, who found herself profiled and harassed for simply parking her car at a store she was visiting.
Read on to find out how the shop lost her business once and for all.
Today I bought a piece of art in for framing to the local framers.
I live in a smallish town.
I have been a customer of them for years, doing much framing with them.
I paint myself but I also enjoy art, especially since the pandemic, and like to get pieces framed.
I have gotten many items framed with them.
I parked in customer parking. I spent quite a bit of money with them that day – around $100.
The woman recognised me and gave me a regular customer discount.
It was also not busy at all, with several car spaces open.
Let’s see how this regular day took a turn for the worse.
Following paying I didn’t move my car straight away.
I saw on my step counter I needed to get a few more steps in so I walked to the main section of town and grabbed some food before heading back to the car and leaving.
I was backing my car out when a man approached me.
I did not recognise him.
He started saying I wasn’t allowed to park there.
He was quite hostile.
I told him I was a customer, and continued to back out in order to leave.
He started trying to get me to stop and try to stop me leaving.
This made me uncomfortable.
I told him to get away from me.
He was staying “hold on, hold on.”
I told him to “get away from me” and ended up swearing at him one time.
I exited the premises but could see him in my rear view mirror.
I want to be clear there were several parking spaces open.
Uh-oh. Let’s find out what happened next.
When I got home I called the framer and told her a hostile man was bothering me outside her store.
She said it was her husband.
She said he misinterpreted the situation and thought I was a non customer parked in customer parking.
She defended him saying that he wouldn’t have approached me rudely and I escalated the situation too quickly, insinuating her husband was targeted by me because he was a white man.
I told her that her husband had not even asked me if I was a customer but immediately started throwing around accusations.
I told her that I had told him I was a customer, but that still did not seem good enough for him and he was trying to stop me leaving before I swore at him.
Read on to find out how the woman felt about this.
I did think it was likely he had profiled me because my car is not very nice but I did not say this.
I also said I wanted my money back and my art back.
When I said this she seemed upset and wanted me to reconsider.
I said I was feeling upset about what happened and would think on it.
I ran into my mum in the driveway and asked her to pick up my art and get my money back.
She did this quickly and said the woman seemed flustered and a bit surprised and upset.
I think she had thought I would go ahead with them but I was upset she had defended him.
AITA?
Okay she swore at the man, but when someone is acting this hostile towards you, that’s totally understandable.
The framer should not have just defended her husband; it’s no wonder she lost a customer in the process.
Let’s see what the folks on Reddit thought about this.
This person totally agreed that the customer did nothing wrong here.
While this person thought it was a clear case of racism.
And others really empathised with the customer, and called out the framer for her lack of customer care.
It’s clear that this customer liked the framing store and wanted to keep shopping there.
But it’s no wonder that, after being abused by the framer’s husband and blamed by the framer, she’s going to want her money back.
Who would want to shop somewhere where they get harassed?
If you thought that was an interesting story, check this one out about a man who created a points system for his inheritance, and a family friend ends up getting almost all of it.
