From  that_ginger927927, Tales From Retail:

I just remembered an old story from when I worked at a grocery store. I was a cashier, and a woman came through my line with her two children.

The girl was smaller than the boy, and the boy was tormenting her as a result (hitting her, poking her, pulling at her, just bothering her basically). To her credit, she never hit him or poked him back and instead kept yelling at him to stop. The mom was basically doing that monotone "Cut it out. Stop it." that extremely checked-out moms have perfected. Pretty par for the course at this point.

Except as mom is putting up the groceries, her son takes a pack of candy (I think it was some kind of Hershey's chocolate) and sticks it in his pocket. When he sees me watching, he smirks at me and sticks out his tongue. So, of course, game on.

I put on my cheery, retail smile, and start scanning. As the order flies by, the kid starts to look around and get bored. I guess he thought he got away with it.

I wait until the very end, and as the woman pulls out her card to pay, I smile and say, "How about the candy as well?" This kid's head spins around from looking at the end of the register and he gives me the most incredulous expression.

The mother looks at me and goes, "What candy?" Looking in her son's eyes the whole time, I say, "The candy your son stuck in his pocket earlier."

This woman goes from 0 to 100 in 1 second flat. She spins around, and starts SCREAMING at her son, waving her arms, just flipping out, and spanked him. The kid is freaking out, and his little sister is just looking on with the most satisfied expression I've ever seen. She pays and hauls him out of the store; the candy bar at the edge of the register as a homage to the craziness that just occurred.

As horrible as I feel about that kid getting spanked, I hope it makes him think twice before acting like such a little jerk again!

-- that_ginger927927