TikToker Posts Viral Video of Woman’s Bizarre Meltdown Over Gas Pump
One young woman got more than she bargained for during a routine trip to the gas station.
In a viral TikTok, user @evergreenandmrsn filmed a blonde woman screaming at her at a Los Angeles service station, all because @evergreenandmrsn took the woman’s preferred pump.
The bizarre reason for the altercation has commenters dubbing the instigator a “Karen,” Internet slang for an entitled—and often white—woman.
“Karen at her best!” user @badmaskguy wrote.
“Karen’s are a wild species that you must not make eye contact with. Stand at least 15 ft away,” user @shigarakiseyebrows wrote.
“I find it funny that most Karens flip out when they’re being filmed but have no problem doing it to others when they think they’re winning a case,” user @happyfakeacct wrote, regarding the fact that the woman also filmed @evergreenandmrsn for the duration of their interaction.
On Thursday, @evergreenandmrsn was refueling her car when the woman approached her to demand that she surrender her pump.
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She “literally screamed, ‘I want that one,'” @evergreenandmrsn says in the video, despite the fact that several others were available.
Clearly baffled, @evergreenandmrsn asks, “What’s your problem, dude?” While the woman’s full response isn’t audible, it ends with the word “b***h,” indicating that it isn’t exactly polite.
“There’s literally so many pumps open, dude,” @evergreenandmrsn replies, repositioning her phone to show the full array.
That’s where the footage ends. In a follow-up TikTok, however, @evergreenandmrsn reports that the women then went into the station, without a mask, to ask the attendant for assistance with making @evergreenandmrsn surrender her pump. Instead, the woman was simply told to find another one, which angered her so much that she began menacing @evergreenandmrsn with her car.
She “kept slamming on her gas and her breaks [sic] acting like she was going to hit me,” @evergreenandmrsn says. “Like okay, range rover hit my Prius. Please. I could use that check.”
Probably wisely, @evergreenandmrsn chose to be “the bigger person” and leave, deciding that the drama and the possibility of bodily injury or vehicular damage weren’t worth it. But in a final twist, she reveals that a child was sitting in the woman’s car the entire time, bearing witness to the brawl.
“Like she left a whole a** child in the car to go throw a fit,” @evergreenandmrsn says of the woman. “She was yelling inside of her car, yelling outside of her car, laying on her horn. That’s so embarrassing. No matter how much money, Range Rover, Lululemon she has, she will never be able to afford the amount of therapy that child is going to need for having her as a mother.”
The original TikTok currently has more than 10 million views.
gas station pump | Sean Gallup/Getty Images/Getty Images
“She Just Liked Fire”: Family Searches for Answers in Gas-Station Suicide
Jerri Phillips lit herself ablaze at a Philadelphia gas station on Saturday night. And nobody knows why.
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Jerri Phillips in photos provided by family.
Friends and family of Jerri Phillips were set to gather at a West Philadelphia mosque on Wednesday afternoon for Janazah, the Muslim funeral services, four days after the 56-year-old woman lit herself on fire at a Germantown gas station. And as is so often the case with tragedies like this one, her loved ones have far more questions than answers.
In the late afternoon on Saturday, Phillips and an unidentified woman pulled into the Conoco at the intersection of Greene and Rittenhouse streets to get some gas. Seconds later, Phillips doused herself with gasoline. Then, using a Bic lighter, she ignited her clothing and was quickly ablaze. Some bystanders reported that she appeared to be praying as she did it. Some ran in to try to extinguish the flames.
Phillips, known to many friends as Suzie or by her Muslim name, Khalilah, was rushed to the hospital with severe burns covering the majority of her body. She died at Temple University Hospital on Sunday.
According to the family members we spoke with, there was no note. No Facebook post. No explanation for why Phillips would end her life this way.
“Everyone in the family is at a loss for words,” says Keisha Phillips, a niece. “We are hurt, angry, and sad. Why would this happen? I just don’t know. I remember her as a loving person who was loved by her family and friends.”
Self-immolation is one of the rarest methods of suicide in developed countries, accounting for less than one percent of self-inflicted deaths. And it’s even rarer among women.
But Aleama Phillips, another niece, says that her aunt had a fascination with fire.
“She played with fire,” says the niece, who says she last saw her aunt in September at a family wedding. “She had arson in her background. She just liked fire.”
Indeed, Phillips was arrested in 1999 and charged with arson, aggravated assault, risking a catastrophe, and other offenses. According to Aleama Phillips, her aunt tried to burn down an ex’s house. She later accepted a plea deal, pleading guilty to arson and simple assault, and was sentenced to up to 23 months in prison and probation.
Over the years, Phillips violated the terms of her probation and she was still paying off the fines and restitutions on that case at the time of her death. A court hearing to discuss her payment plan was set for this Thursday.
A scene from a vigil held in Phillips’s memory. “Ummi” means mother in Arabic. (Photo courtesy Bernard Jordan)
News of the tragic incident first appeared on a Germantown community Facebook group on Saturday night.
“When I left my apartment to walk my dog tonight, I turned the corner and watched an ambulance loading someone into the back,” wrote one resident just before 6 p.m. “I learned from bystanders that a woman had just lit herself on fire. She reportedly kneeled and prayed, aflame, until bystanders tried to extinguish her.”
Another neighbor, Philly musician James Michael Baker, posted his account of what he saw.
“I looked up to watch this woman for about a minute as she moved strangely and slowly, charred and smoking, otherworldly from standing to her knees,” he wrote. “She seemed to be saying something, but I couldn’t hear … It’s something I will see forever … I would like to know what happened to her and maybe her reason, if anyone manages to find out.”
Other residents wondered whether this final act was a form of protest. After all, self-immolation has a long history as a political statement, and in some Muslim countries like Afghanistan and Iran, self-immolation is not uncommon, especially among women.
But the relatives we spoke with say that if there was a message behind what Phillips did, they have no idea what it is.
“It just doesn’t make any sense,” says Keisha Phillips. “She lived like she was a movie star, like she was in Hollywood or something. She always had those sunglasses on. You would never think she would do this. But even the person she was in the car with had no idea. She said, ‘I’ll pump the gas’ and the next thing they know, she was just a ball of fire in the middle of the street.”
For confidential support if you are having thoughts of suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255). Learn about the warning signs of suicide at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
