Get The Popcorn
At this point, most people have come across someone who is considered a “Karen.” It actually seems harder to avoid them than to find them. If you have spent time trying to get away from these people, but still find them entertaining and somewhat fascinating, look no further. And hopefully, you can avoid any personal experiences with them if you don’t already have a few stories in your belt. They are a different type of person entirely from the normal mom type. They have this innate notion of entitlement and a ridiculous sense of privilege. Their egos cannot be tamed, and they love to cause chaos wherever they go. Most of us have already had our fair share of these people, but it is still nice to share the memory because usually, it is so ludicrous, it deserves a story time.
For the sake of the name Karen, let’s call this crazy lady “Karol.” Just to mix things up. Add in a splash of entitlement and just a hint of revenge and we’ve got it all! Unfortunately, for “Lena,” she had to experience it all at one time while working. Fortunately for us, she decided to tell the tale!
~
For The Kids
Karen sightings in the wild are not uncommon these days and Lena has dealt with her fair share. Although for the most part, she hasn’t had a problem with handling them and then going on with her day unbothered. However, one woman changed that forever. It was Karol. Lena worked at a theme park for children. It wasn’t a very big park, but it was still pretty popular. It was mostly geared for kids under 10 years old. Since the illness that shall not be named has been running rampant, the park has had to change its schedule. The park still wanted to be able to accommodate its visitors so it had created two time-slots during the day rather than just one. Before chaos happened, the park had a capacity of about 2,300 people during its hours of operation; 10:00 am to 4:00 pm. That couldn’t work anymore since the health and safety of the guests were the park’s main priority. Therefore with being restricted to 800 guests at a time, they divided the day. They were open from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm for the first shift and 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm for the second. That hour in between was crucial since the staff would deep clean the park during that time. The whole park was closed and sanitized for the next group of families. If a family decided they wanted to come in for both of the shifts at the park they would have to purchase separate tickets.
So basically Lena was dealing with crazed parents of toddlers who hadn’t slept in years and were on the brink of a meltdown. And now there were more rules to follow, which is hard enough when you’re wrangling little ones. Karol was one of these parents, but she went too far with her insanity.
~
No Boundaries
Lena had to close the register at 11:45 am because she had register responsibilities to finish before the cleaning hour. Obviously, this meant guests were unable to buy a ticket for the first shift after 11:45 am. There were a lot of families who already had season passes to the park, so the staff didn’t usually have difficulty getting everyone out of the park before noon and then re-opening at 1:00 pm. And “no one would reasonably buy tickets for the last 15 minutes anyway,” so this was just how things worked. Lena felt like “it was going to be a normal Thursday.” After all, she hadn’t come across any guest that was too much to handle yet!
She was about to get the shock of a lifetime when a woman came up to her register at 11:50 am. This woman was maskless, although the signage was clear about the mask mandate(this was a kid’s theme park after all, and they would be more vulnerable), and she was demanding to buy a ticket to get into the park. Karol wasn’t trying to buy a ticket for the second part of the day, no she was trying to get in right then, even though the hours were clearly stated and the park was being cleared out for cleaning. Karol said she wanted to buy a ticket for the last 20 minutes. However, it was already 10 minutes before close, so that made no sense. Lena calmly explained it was 10 minutes until closing time and the register had been shut off, so she wouldn’t be able to sell any more tickets for the early shift.
Lena explained they would reopen in an hour and she could come back then. Karol was beside herself. Her child was screaming and she “started getting really snippy.” She claimed she “didn’t know [they] closed so early” and “my kid is crying and I just want to make him stop.”
There are so many problems with this. Firstly, she clearly knew what time they closed because she had specifically asked for a ticket for the last few minutes and the hours were posted on a sign “which at the moment was right in front of her face.” Also, she should probably have another way of soothing her child. Having kids is tough! She was probably sleep-deprived and didn’t want to see her three-year-old upset. But that didn’t change the fact that the park was closed and she would need to find another option or come back later. But she didn’t take it so easily and it wasn’t just her child who was throwing the tantrum now.
~
Not Their Responsibility
While Lena was trying to handle the situation, her “supervisor happened to walk in right at that time.” It was the end of that shift and Lena should have had the register counted so the manager wanted to see what was going on. The manager told Karol the same thing that Lena had, but Karol was not having it.
“My kid won’t calm down unless we go inside to play, right now,” Karol snapped.
“There’s a very nice, big playground, very clean, about five minutes walk down the street, and [you] could easily kill an hour there until we reopen,” Lena replied, trying to help the lady find a solution.
The woman was beyond simple solutions, though, and shouted, “I’ve tried telling my kids that and they won’t listen! You should just let us in!”
Lady, come on, that is not how that works. Why does she think that would do anything to change her situation? And her children were her responsibility, so she would need to find an alternate solution. Hopefully, one that didn’t involve berating employees just doing their jobs.
Lena noticed that Karol didn’t just have the toddler, she also had a seven-year-old who was “hiding behind her.” It is so sad that her children had to see her attitude get like this! Lena felt bad for the kid because they had to witness their mom’s bad behavior and this was their role model. We hope that they turn out better than her one day.
Lena’s supervisor retorted, “Well, you’re the mother, it’s your responsibility to make them understand.”
It wasn’t their job to explain to the kids why they couldn’t go into the theme park, that was way above their pay grade. It was way past the point where Lena would be done with the register duties, so now she was behind with her actual work. It was supposed to be her lunch break, but Karen’s ruin everything. And she hadn’t even shown her real crazy streak yet.
~
Literally No Boundaries
Before they could process what was happening the mother of two started to barge through the gates attempting to get into the park. She was using the stroller “ like it was a battering ram or something.”
“Well, I’m just going to go in anyway, and we’ll just play over there for five minutes! Try and stop me if you want!” Karol screamed as she made it through the gates and into the park.
Lena had no idea what just happened. Did this woman just trespass? She did! From across the entrance, Lena heard the voice of the retail manager, “Ma’am! Ma’am, you need to come back here!”
This manager was not someone to be messed with as she was big and could get scary. Even her words couldn’t stop mommy rampage as she stormed through the park dragging her two littles with her. Then it was time to get security involved. Well, the facilities manager. Lena was surprised things had gotten this far out of hand. She thought to herself ma’am, please leave so I can just do my job. And by some miracle, it happened. Thank you facilities manager! He was also big and scary and he was finally able to get Krazy Karol out of the park. Lena and her manager talked about how she was behind in her work and how persistent Karol had been. Lena was shocked at the woman’s behavior and now had her fill with ‘Karen’ experiences. She had seen it all.
~
Notes From The Author
It always seems crazy to me that people truly act this way. Even though I’ve met plenty of Karen’s it still never ceases to amaze and shock me. This woman went way too far. So far that she had to be kicked out! I really wonder if she could get banned from a place because of this. Maybe they should have banned her. Could that have possibly taught her a lesson?
Kids are hard to deal with. They often have a tough time explaining their wants and needs and communicating. If this mother had taken the time to find a solution for them it probably would have ended much happier than this. And if she is raising them to be this demanding then it’s obviously working against her because they are using it back on her. She should think about how her actions affect her children.
On the other hand, should they have just let her in for 10 minutes and then kicked her out? She would have had to pay full price even though it was the end. Would things have been different if they had let her in? Or would she have just thrown a fit about paying for the whole time slot for only a few minutes?
And why do people act as though they can’t read when it comes to signs that list hours or rules? Those are posted for a reason. And in the current state of the world, following the rules is the least a person can do to make their day and everyone else’s a little bit easier. Everyone has a duty to respect those around them at least to avoid conflict and chaos. Obviously, Karen’s thrive off of both of those, so they continue to multiply even when you least expect it. Watch out for Karen’s around and make sure you aren’t turning into one!
~