Samuel's Temper

It soon became apparent that all was not well between Mandy and her North Korean-born son. Inside a local Walmart, I became witness to one of the temper tantrums she had told me about. However, the first thing I noticed was Mandy appeared to be struck by consumer fever, as her cart ran over the foot of a young man in the food aisle on her way to raid the canned-ham half-price sale. I saw the look of fear in his eyes as her shopping cart bore down upon him. He tried in vain to save himself by jumping out of her way, the wheels of her shopping cart squeaking crazily, as she and three other women stampeded for the ham. When I asked the young man if he was okay, he rubbed his foot and had the dazed look of an accident victim on his face.
Later that hectic afternoon, in the Electronics section of the store, I found Samuel holding onto a Sony Playstation, and Mandy was continuously shaking her head, no. The scene then involved much huffing and puffing on the part of Samuel, his face turning red, and culminated with him sitting down on the floor while beating it with both clenched fists until Mandy gave into his demands, which on this occasion she didn’t. It reminded me a lot of the DVD movie I’d found amongst his secret bedroom chest of drawer items; a copy of the “The Producers” (not the one starring Matthew Broderick, but the original with Gene Wilder). I noted it because of the scene where Wilder ‘s character freaks out when Bialystock tries to take his blue blankie away from him. After thinking about it, I realized it reminded me of Samuel’s temper tantrum I’d just witnessed, and it wasn’t a pretty sight.