Burning Down The Mall Because You Can’t Find A Shopping Cart Joins Long List Of Customer Overreactions

Image courtesy of Kent Regional Fire Authority

When you’ve been wronged by a business — or believe you have been — there are two ways you can try to resolve the situation: one, you can take a deep breath and calmly address the issue at hand by using your words; or, you can go the opposite route and overreact completely, and woe betide the poor mortals caught in your way.

Police in Kent, WA say a woman who was upset about the lack of shopping carts set fire to a strip mall last Sunday, causing a three-alarm blaze that took 75 firefighters 24 hours to put out, KOMO News reports.

According to court documents, the woman charged with sparking the fire mentioned to a Dollar Tree employee that there weren’t any carts, and said she’d be taking her business elsewhere.

She left, then returned and said something about “burning the store down,” authorities said. She made a trip to the greeting card aisle and then alerted employees, “The store is on fire.”

Store workers tried to extinguish the fire but were unsuccessful, and it spread from there to five businesses nearby.

Prosecutors charged her on Wednesday with first-degree arson.

The suspect is far from alone in having an extreme reaction in a situation that doesn’t quite merit such an outsized response. And when we say far, we mean, there’s a huge long list of these kinds of situations in just the past few years:

• The Taco Bell customer who allegedly shot at a store over forgotten sour cream

• A Wendy’s patron who police said trashed the restaurant because she was dissatisfied with her order

• An incident in France where an Apple store customer smashed up the store because the company wouldn’t replace his defective iPhone

• The accused shoplifter who bit off the finger of the Walmart worker who confronted her for stealing

• Drive-thru customers who allegedly attacked a Burger King worker because their order wasn’t ready fast enough

• An angry Wendy’s customer who was arrested for biting a manager because of a mixup in her order

• The all-out brawl at a pizzeria that police said was caused by unwanted cheese on a customer’s order of garlic knots

• A New York City bus passenger who was arrested for hijacking the bus after the driver told her to stop smoking on it

• The guy who was accused of slashing a Dunkin’ Donuts worker in the face after being asked to leave the store

• A McDonald’s customer who ended up in a tie-grabbing, right-hook flying kerfuffle with a worker because he was tired of waiting for his change

• The man who police said shattered a glass door at Waffle House because he was cranky about his bill for sausage biscuits

• A customer who was turned down for a loan who allegedly threatened a Kia dealership with a handgun

• Yet another shoplifting suspect accused of biting someone; this time it was a Target security officer’s arm

• The Macy’s customer who was accused of biting an employee in a dispute over a price

• An unhappy Subway customer who hurled a sandwich and a soda at an employee and then allegedly tried to hit her with her car

• The Taco Bell customers accused of walking into the restaurant after their drive-thru order was incorrect, and assaulting a fellow patron who stood up for staff with a tire iron

• The guy who was so upset that his US Airways flight was overbooked, he stripped naked at the Charlotte Airport to show his displeasure

• A man who police said pitched a condiment-throwing fit over a rest stop’s lack of macaroni and cheese and potatoes

• Accused dine-and-dashers who allegedly ran over a waitress who was trying to confront them about their bill

• The Pizza Hut customer who was apparently so mad that his order got lost, he allegedly drove his car into the restaurant

• A Walmart customer who was caught on tape head-butting a tax worker during an argument in the store

• The bodega customer who was accused of using a stolen credit card and then allegedly trying to set the clerk on fire with Axe body spray

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