It’s no secret that people get vicious over the holidays. Malls are dangerous between Thanksgiving and December 24 (a woman once tripped me and then laughed as I fell because I didn’t say “excuse me” loudly enough when squeezing past her), BevMo is a violent free-for-all the day before the 4th of July, and now not even Costco parking lots are safe from gruesome multi-person fights that break out over parking spaces over Memorial Day Weekend. The heat and the fear that someone will grab that last bottle of cut-rate Fireball or Kirkland brand vodka is enough to drive anyone insane.
Fair warning: What you’re about to see (because of course someone got it on tape) is not safe for work. There’s language, and violence, and, as Bro Bible points out, a woman with one of the most annoying screams in the world. The entire thing is also pretty confusing for two reasons: One, it happened in Canada, where we’re told people are nice and bad things never happen; two, it’s really hard to make out why exactly people are fighting or why a second round of fighting occurs after the initial screaming match dies down.
Enough of this prattling, however. Here’s the havoc in all its unadulterated “people are and will always be awful even when you give them modern conveniences and produce at cheap prices” glory:
Confused as to what’s going on? So are we. That’s why we propose that every person involved in this fight (once they are done dealing with any and all proper authorities) agree to appear in a limited-event series for HBO. Make it The Jinx for 2016. Find out exactly who’s at fault! Answer the important question of why this even became physical when it could have ended with a couple of impolite words and a flipped finger! The public demands it!
Until then, here’s a concise but wholly unsatisfying explanation from the CBC:
Joe Carreiro was walking back to his car, arms filled with bulk purchases, when he was stopped, quite literally, in his tracks.
His car was blocked in, and a screaming match over a parking space was escalating. Over the next few minutes he watched — and then started filming — as the conflict seemed to dissipate and then picked up again, eventually coming to blows.
“I was just doing some shopping,” the real estate agent told CBC News, “and all of a sudden there was a lot of screaming and yelling.” The participants moved their cars, he said, and then “they came back to the middle of the parking lot and started again. It wasn’t long before they started whaling on each other.”
Police are currently investigating. The video has, of course, gone viral.