#their eagerness to pick honest fight in stead of people who cannot fight for themselves and in sake of our eardrums sticked to me

[distracteddaintydemon]

Let's just say, I live in Europe and never have I ever heard about it before I entered The Far Internets.

Most of Central Europe religious folks subscribe to the idea that "you shan't shop at Sunday if you're a religious person unless really really necessary, and you should be slightly ashamed for your planning skills, because that's what Saturdays and Friday evenings are for. If you have to go buy something at Sunday, you ought to be quick and nice. Those poor brave people work at Sunday so you can have emergency shopping so treat it like emergency, do your thing and get your ass out of there."

Restaurants, gelatos and cafés at Sundays are a bit different from grocery shopping tho. Many religious folks here see ice cream after service as some kind of idyllic imagery they can partake in to invoke their nicest childhood memories and/or make nice childhood memories with their children. Sometimes they want to make good impression on their neighbors. Very often they have in mind that not everyone can afford to treat whole family with something yummy at Sunday and then Sunday gelato is a little celebration of itself. Usually they see it as kind of unofficial part of the service. Getting all those things together... Central European church crowd at cafe or gelateria is usually on their best behavior. If someone was to make a scene or yell at cashier, there's a little chance of someone openly intervening, but an extremely high chances of glares, humphs, tsks and other indirect signs of disapproval, because that one rude customer just shattered the idyllic simulacrum everyone was basking in. Also a high chance of an adult very loudly whispering to their child "Don't look that way! Some adults are very rude and cannot properly behave!" which translates to "I dare you. I fucking dare you, come here and pick fight with me, when I'm obviously just talking to my child, and then it'll be you vs me + my 3 family members + half of café I'll take as witnesses and I'll happily destroy your rude loud annoying ass".

Which I know for sure, because at least twice I was the child theatrically whispered to, and at least once challenge has been accepted. And now, being an adult and knowing my family, I'm positive they knew exactly what they were doing. It was socially unacceptable to mess in other people's squabbles unless those people were absolutely obnoxiously deranged, but when those squabbling people went for bystanders quietly commenting among themselves? Absolutely acceptable to react.

Church goers getting out of Sunday service to go harass retail employees